NSX
by Ultimanium
Summary: Invaders descend on the world Troy calls home... armed with the Chronicle, he and others must delve into the forgotten past of the universe to save themselves. Can anything contend with the unstoppable force known only as NSX?...
1. Press Start, Player Two

"How long..."  
  
"How long have I wandered..."  
  
"How long have I wandered... and not found solace such as this..."  
  
"How long have I wandered... to escape..."  
  
"How long have I wandered... to escape... it..."  
  
In one moment the void remained motionless, but was shaken the next by an almost inhuman scream, coming from virtually every direction... if such sense of motion existed within the plane. From deep within the darkness an epic flash of light rang out, the distorted shriek slowly fading back into reality.  
  
A great door of light appeared, spewing forth rays of gold... but amidst it was something less than. What seemed like a spectral mist seeped between, becoming quite visible - moreso audible. An incorporeal shriek rose from it, piercing in all directions. Slowly the mist solidified, twisting and bending - in mere moments it became more pronounced, and bright almost to the degree of the portal of light. As soon as the process had begun, it was over - a humanoid form crumpled up, securing itself in the fetal position as the rift behind it slammed shut.  
  
For what seemed like days the figure remained stationary, twitching from time to time as it continued to emit its shrill whimper. Images flooded its being; tragedy, war, death, famine, destruction. It writhed, focusing as hard as it could to eject its intelligence in a last-ditch attempt to purge the plague from what remained of its mind.  
  
Slowly the infestation faded. Once again the being found silence beyond. There he remained, slowly regaining his sanity.  
  
Millennia passed.  
  
The void was as stagnant as it had ever been. Once again the figure was curled up, drifting solemnly on the cosmic wind. Slowly its "head" craned up, exposing a pair of nova-bright eyes that dwarfed even the rest of his luminescent composure.  
  
Again... time marched on. Countless eons came and went... and a single extradimensional figure went unnoticed.  
  
For the first time since creation... it drifted to a halt. With an explosion of light, it extended its limbs, unfolding spread-eagle in the air. Its body was tall and slender, pulsing from hypothetical head to toe with massive amounts of energy. As spectacular as the minor outsider appeared, what display of beauty was about to be cut short.  
  
A twitch ran through it, causing a spark of energy to leap off into the vacuum and dissipate.  
  
"....i....ittt...."  
  
It slowly began to convulse, feeling dread return to its blurred vision after its massive lapse. A pair of ethereal hands raised, clutching the head in what looked like deathly pain. Slowly, a voice began to play, massively distorted, but still legible to the otherworldly being...  
  
"VAST."  
  
The figure of light turned this way and that - there was no way this was happening. IT was happening. Again. It had come, not for the omniscient presence ahead of it... but for other reasons. Slowly but surely, knowledge began to trickle back into the outsider's senses... upgrading it, returning it to its previous state, albeit somewhat more sane.  
  
"...I feel. It..." both hands lowered, and were raised again into the creature's line of sight. Both fists clenched. "...you haven't come for me... you do nothing... but seek destruction..."  
  
The now sentient being stared on into space. The corruption was there... growing... expanding... almost as if it were crafting a spherical barrier in all directions. As the force began to corrupt his senses... it disappeared in a flash. Once again the demibeing was left alone in the astral plane. Slowly his head craned up.  
  
"...you've found a new target." he peered off into the distance. Indeed, by the trace power that was being given off... he knew that trail of energy well. The massive wave of energy off in the distance washed over his senses, magnifying them thousand fold. There was a physical realm. Near. Very near.  
  
He had to pursue. His fists clenched harder, shaking violently. "...I will not let you do this... not again..." he cast his arm to the side, tearing a rift in space-time. He knew where he was going - with the nearby physical dimension, there would undoubtedly be a spirit well. And where there was a spirit well, there would be "blueprints" for any physical form of his choosing, providing it existed at some point in a nearby realm.  
  
"You shall not win." the figure's eyes narrowed as a massive crack echoed out in front of him. Slowly space-time began to crumble, revealing a bright green light beyond. He reached forward, embracing a lone figure as it floated out. The silhouette began to envelop him - a massive frame, at least seven feet tall, powerfully built...  
  
He saw no more.  
  
In a bright flash of energy, the same figure tore across the cosmos as it slowly began to recompose its previous form, diving deep into the gate that lied before it...  
  
How entwined he would become in the mortal realm...?  
  
And what such legends would be born alongside him...?  
  
********  
  
Rain raked the ground, washing away any thing that the violent winds hadn't already disposed off. The usual pristine hills of the countryside were in an oddly chaotic state. It was safe to say it was not particularly a fun time to be outside. What sparse wildlife that inhabited the area had found shelter in the large underground pipe systems which entrances dotted the landscape, and what travelers remained out in the storm were quickly trying to gain entrance to the small city that lied in the heart of the expansive plains. A massive queue of short stubby figures, all topped with odd mushroom-like caps, was stood outside of the walls of the city, in the process of arguing with a pair of blue-capped gate guards who were sheltered within an admission booth.  
  
"I am FREEZING out here!" one female barked in a shrill voice.  
  
One of the guards was at the front trying to ward off the soaked and/or angry travelers while the other was in the back talking into the top half of a mushroom-shaped phone. Nodding frantically, he turned back to the front. "Alright, everyone... I'm getting in contact with the King's representatives now... we're going to try to get curfew extended so we can get our gates open a little while longer... until then, can I get you all to sit tight?"  
  
The front worker slammed the Closed shutter down as multiple people lunged for the opening. "...that's taken care of."  
  
On the other side of the gate, the city was no less spared than the exterior. The cobblestone roads were being pounded hard by the deluge, and what few mushroom people were left outside were fighting their way towards their cubish, sloped-roof wooden homes that lined the streets. Lights began to go out as citizens were able to seek refuge, and for a moment it seemed that locally at least the night was over.  
  
Lights remained on in the large castle off in the distance, however.  
  
The observatory was one of the largest rooms in the fortress, as well as one of the best furnished and the most expansive. The walls were of the finest wood available to the royal family, a pair of massive bookshelves took up most of the two long walls, a series of recliners were set up in front of an exquisite fireplace positioned directly underneath the right- wall shelf, and a pane-glass window on the far wall reached at least 40 feet to the ceiling. One could view nearly all of the city below from the perch.  
  
A royal retainer stood at the window, his arms hanging behind him. He reached up, adjusting his mushroom cap, and giving his small white vest a last shuffle before letting his hands fall back into their standby position. He squinted as he stared off into the rain, only stopping as a thunderclap cut into his concentration. He suddenly whirled around as heavy steps resounded from the entrance.  
  
"...sire?" he called out. "...some of the other retainers have been looking for you..."  
  
The door shut with a soft click. A large man stepped into view, draped in long black robes with fine yellow trim. He wore a wraparound mushroom cap like his followers, save it was larger and pitch black, and sported a gold- foil-like spiked crest on top. He slowly walked up to the window, his bushy mustache twitching along with the rest of his face as he suddenly let out a hacking cough.  
  
"...are you alright?" the retainer looked over his liege as he bent over and back again, dispelling his cough.  
  
"...no, no... I'm quite fine..." he clenched a fist, beating his chest lightly. "...it's just that... the air's a bit chilly tonight... I wouldn't want to be caught out on a dreadful night like this, certainly... anyways... Toad, you said the other retainers were seeking me?"  
  
"As was I," Toad remained motionless. "...curfew began half an hour ago but there are still more people arriving at the gates. We were seeking permission to extend curfew another hour so we open up for a little while longer."  
  
The king waved his arm. "Well, by all means, do so! The Mushroom Kingdom will welcome all trapped in a quagmire like tonight!"  
  
Toad nodded. "Gotcha." He glanced around the king's wide body where another retainer stood at the door. "...we've got a confirmation. Can you relay down to the main gate that curfew's been extended?"  
  
"Can do." The retainer made a mock salute, turning and dashing off down the hall.  
  
"Well..." the monarch reached up, stretching and allowing his long sleeves to hang limply on his arms. "...I'm going to be hitting the sack here... I'm sure everyone else can handle what affairs remain tonight?"  
  
Toad smirked. In any other case he would have applied his stupidly affirmative grimace and marched off to do whatever, but he knew already what else the sovereign was implying. "Are you sure the princess is still up at this time?"  
  
"Why wouldn't she?" the king slowly returned to the door, glancing over his shoulder. "...have you seen the size of that book she's reading? I know we have some magnificent works here, but the way she immerses herself into them... it's hard for me to imagine she EVER sleeps. Can you possibly find her and let her know that I'd like her to oversee admissions until curfew begins again? I mean, with the retainers' assistance?"  
  
Toad nodded. "Affirmative." He paused, waiting until the king had reached for the closed door. "...sire?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Toad half-chuckled. "You know she'd probably have a fit, right?"  
  
The king returned the gesture. "...not that I could blame her on a night such as, but it's important that I keep my daughter on her toes... frightening as it seems, she may be ruling this kingdom someday. She needs some gentle reminders that she's in a position of authority... and that position of authority entitles her to more than discounts at clothing and book stores. It entitles her to responsibility." He smiled softly, giving the doorknob a twist. "I'll see you tomorrow."  
  
"Later." Toad waved weakly as the door clicked shut again. He waited another moment before cursing to himself, that he'd be the one that needed to awaken a beast that night. Sighing to himself, he closed the damper on the fireplace, watching the blaze rapidly die out before leaving the expansive chamber.  
  
********  
  
"TONIGHT?!"  
  
"That's the plan." Toad groaned.  
  
"...he's got to be kidding." The young woman slowly shook her head, suddenly sitting upwards as she passed off the novel to her free hand. She pivoted off the fluffy bed with the other, standing up. She was dressed in casual and visibly worn trousers, and a simple white shirt. Toad was visibly shocked as he noticed what exactly she was wearing. Her blonde hair flowed behind her, tied back as such it just inched beyond her shoulders. "...Toad? Seriously... you look like you've seen a ghost."  
  
"...hm... well." Toad straightened himself. "...I'm just not used to seeing you so... laid-back."  
  
"...are you just going to stand there? C'mon in."  
  
"Miss Toadstool, I came t-"  
  
She audibly grumbled. Toad sighed, stepping in from the doorframe. He was again startled at the room itself – the excessively fluffy bed that was there the last time he was here was still intact, but the rest of the room which had been designed as a fauna of pinks and purples and was designated to house all the possessions of a princess had degenerated to a plain bedroom. Gone were the exotic cabinets and shelves and perfumes and jewellery and the belongings of the princess he once knew, instead replaced by largely generic bedroom essentials. Various posters dotted the walls. "...that's odd... what went on here?"  
  
"I did some renovations." Toadstool slid the book back into a shelf, which was completely full of borrowed materials from the libraries of the castle. "...I got some help from Wooster."  
  
Toad jarred his head to the left. Another beige-dressed retainer was at the edge of the wall with a paint roller, covering over the last strip of pink drywall with a coat of white paint. "I agree. This room... was just a complete and utter eyesore. I was more than happy to put my say in this."  
  
Toad shrugged. "...hm, well, whatever floats your boat." He looked over to the open closet, where the princess' ceremonial dress still hung loosely in front of all her other clothes. It was a bright pink garment, which rapidly flared down at the bottom and suddenly tightened from the torso up. A large blue gem was held in place upon the chest. Somehow, just looking at made the retainer feel calm. He woke himself from his trance, turning back to the regal figure before him. "...oh, yeah... anyways, Miss Toads-"  
  
She tilted her head. "...please... Toad, no. You know-"  
  
"You know how much I hate that name." Toad sang. "Alright, alright. I thought I could get away with it... if you won't let me call you by your royal name, then we need to talk, Peach."  
  
Peach's grin spread a mile wide. "That's... my little retainer!"  
  
Toad blinked.  
  
"...uh... yeah..." Peach fully propped herself off the bed, standing up. "...well, if we need to keep an eye on admissions so closely, we'd better get going."  
  
Toad nodded, turning to march back through the door behind Peach. At the last moment, he glanced back over his shoulder. "...uh, Peach..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You swapped out everything else... but why'd you keep the bed?"  
  
"It was comfy."  
  
Toad heaved a sigh, and closed the door behind him.  
  
Had they stayed any longer, they would have noticed the great green flash in the sky from Peach's window.  
  
********  
  
NSX  
  
1: Press Start, Player Two  
  
********  
  
"HAAAAAAALTT!!!"  
  
Wet mud flew as Troy planted his feet against the ground hard, letting out a yell as he launched into the air and over a large crevice in the soft dirt below. He landed hard on his feet, hopping once again into the air and landing in a run. He arms pumped in the air as he built up speed, taking himself down a hill and up the next as fast as his Koopa legs could take him. He continually reminded himself that the barrens of his home kingdom were NOT the best place to lose pursuers. Definitely not dozens of them. The physically draining rain storm didn't particularly help matters.  
  
He followed a path down into the hills again, hanging left as the sand road twisted that way and turned back. He screeched to a halt as a pair of helmeted red-shelled turtles leapt down in front of him, both winding up to hurl a hammer. Troy leapt to the side, dodging them both, and circled around to the left Koopa, successfully latching onto his arm and swinging him hard against his comrade, sending them both to the dirt as he sped off in a run.  
  
Both Hammer Brothers bounded back to their feet after trying to brace off each other twice unsuccessfully. They were promptly flanked by another two dozen staple Koopa soldiers, armed with generic spears and swords.  
  
"What are you WAITING FOR?!" one of them shrieked. "AFTER HIM!!!" With a loud cry, the entire battalion charged forward, wildly swinging their weapons. Troy glanced over his shoulder. There hadn't been any turns after his last – meaning the mob was gradually beginning to gain on him.  
  
"This is baaaaaad..." Troy muttered, still keeping his eyes behind him. He rounded another corner, much to his relief – the path began to wind down further into a cavernous gap in the ground, which Troy could see off in the distance slowly snaking up the other side. He leapt to a skid stop, screeching to a halt perfectly in front of a bridge that led across the gorge. The pit below was nigh-bottomless.  
  
High in the sky, a massive green rift opened. The gate emitted a shrill howl as with one mighty explosion of force a heavily-built body was launched from it, its frame unfurling as it plummeted down, now in effect of the physical realm's gravity. Its true form was then evident – it was a massive humanoid avian, easily seven feet in height – its body was sheeted in seemingly metallic scales, comprised of the same material as the beast's beak. It spread its arms, unveiling a pair of wide patchwork wings. Slowly it began to spiral, aiming straight down as it pierced through the cloud cover.  
  
Two more turtle-like figures stood upon the edge of the crevice, watching as Troy fled for his life across the fragile land bridge, somewhat of a stark contrast of the other soldiers still pursuing Troy due to their rather large hair. One's jutted up and was dyed a rainbow of colors, the other blue coif threatened to engulf the back of its host's head.  
  
"Aw, man," the left one held a bow in his right hand, and shielded his eyes with the second. "How am I gonna hit him with this sun?"  
  
"Iggy, you buffoon, did you listen to anything that father said? The defector is to be brought back ALIVE! Now, give me that before you manage to injure yourself with it like everything else!"  
  
Iggy muttered to himself, handing the weapon to him. "Not fair, Ludwig."  
  
"Very much so." Ludwig held up the bow, slinging a slim foot-long arrow into the nock. On its end was an explosive charge.  
  
"Hey-"Iggy protested.  
  
"I am quite aware of what I said! Just let me DO THINGS! WEEEEEEOOOO!!" Ludwig let out a shrill laugh as he let the arrow fly, watching with grim satisfaction as it flew up into the air and arced down unto the bridge. Troy grinded to a halt as the arrow exploded, completely blasting the center of the bridge to pieces. Troy remained at the edge, still looking around confusedly before noticing the two turtles upon the edge of the crevice. He then looked not-so-confusedly at the massive fissure that was slowly growing under his feet. With a screech he leapt up, running back the other way as the bridge literally crumbled apart one step behind him.  
  
He glanced up again as he neared the beginning of the bridge – slowing down as he noticed the entire brigade of Koopas waiting patiently for him. "...oh... crud."  
  
Ludwig dropped down in front of him. "That indeed." Troy stared blankly as the Koopa raised his bulky arm, driving his fist straight into Troy's face.  
  
********  
  
Troy reeled forward again, taking in a deep breath. The air around him was dark... just as dark as before, except rain was no longer beating down on him. It was then he accepted the cold, morbid truth. He slowly sat up on the frail cot he was haphazardly dumped onto, his eyes slowly regaining focus. As his vision became sharper, so did the rest of his senses, including that associated with his pounding sinuses. He fell backwards again, his head hitting no pillow. He lied there for a moment before sitting up again, swinging his legs to the side and off the rickety bed.  
  
He was out of the rain, that was a given – his surroundings weren't any more appealing, however. The room was composed entirely of interlocking granite bricks, each slightly rounded at their centers. A small wooden table sat directly to his side, standing on three legs and using the wall as support. Soft blue light poured in from a small window along the ceiling on the same wall, which was fortified with several thick bars of metal. Troy felt cold, abnormally so even though there was no insulation around the gap in the wall. His shell had been confiscated, leaving him in striped shorts and little else.  
  
His eyes lazily drifted to the opposite wall, which consisted of vertically- spanning iron bars not unlike the ones in his "window". Outside, a large chair just to the right had a massive helmeted tortoise resting upon it, with an almost comically large tempered mallet strapped across his back. A Sledge Brother. He whistled to himself in a low tone, flipping through a travel brochure. It was packed to the brim with all the usual commissioned- leave resorts, that much Troy knew. He was also aware that Koopas had an odd taste in leisure activities. While he himself wouldn't have minded a two-week paid leave to the sludge lakes of Pipe Land, he knew full well any other being would have vomited at the exquisitely disgusting photo on the third page of the pamphlet. Nonetheless, a Koopa Troop elite soldier keeping tabs on him meant full well that Troy had just hit 12 on the crapometer.  
  
A loud clang echoed in the distance, followed by irregular footsteps. Troy blinked as a much smaller, though much more muscular turtle waddled into view. He and the Sledge Brother both exchanged lengthy if totally illegible salutes before the Sledge Brother rose off the chair, turning and sliding a large key into the door of Troy's cell. With a loud click the door of the brig swung wide open. The visitor strode in, and it was only then that Troy noticed that he was shorter than himself.  
  
"Ah. You're that brat." His stubby arms folded behind his back as he slowly circled the Troopa. "...I've heard that you're in quite the predicament. I'm surprised you haven't been exiled already. But, given your knowledge of the inner workings of the king's plans, I suppose it would be best to give you a good whipping here."  
  
"Uh." The Sledge Brother nodded dumbly.  
  
"Who are you and what do you want?" Troy sighed.  
  
"They call me Boom-boom, and it's my job to curate this little pit and see to it that prisoners, Koopa or not, get the thrashing they deserve. As you might have expected, you're going to be receiving a thrashing times ten thousand. I was told to inform you that the king himself would like to see you," his eyes narrowed and his voice hissed. "in person."  
  
Troy slid back as his heart leapt. What was he expecting? A discharge, an exile, not having to report every intricacy of his plot to the king of the Koopas in the flesh. He glanced around, still lacking breath. There was no way out of his situation now. Boom-boom raised an eyebrow as Troy continued to glance around frantically, a smirk beginning to grow on his face. "Heh. I'm assuming you're a little afraid. I couldn't blame ya. But that's what you get when you mess with the Koopa Troop." He stood, falling back onto his stumpy legs. "King Bowser has already made arrangements to arrive at this fortress in eight hours. I'd be writin' a will if I were you. Well, I'm spent. G'day." Boom-boom let out a low chuckle as he turned, stepping out of the cage as the Sledge guard slammed it back shut.  
  
As Boom-boom left his sight, Troy focused again on the cold grey ground. What information he had obtained through uncertain means had definitely turned out to be as hazardous to the diplomatic affairs of the Koopas as he had thought, if Bowser himself wanted his head on a silver platter for threatening to take it elsewhere. For now, there was little to do but sit and wait...  
  
********  
  
The hours came and went. Troy remained steadfast, idly twiddling his thumbs and whistling as he nonchalantly accepted his fate. Outside a loud thump sounded. The gate of the fortress was lifted. Obviously the gate on the otherwise shoddy prison was put there for grand entrances, and it took Troy a heartbeat to realize who'd shown up. He stared up at the ceiling, the noise on the upper levels gradually rising and falling again as his visitors navigated the maze-like fortress. Troy rocked back and forth on the cot, waiting a few more minutes before a massive crash echoed out from the far end of his hall. They slammed shut again, and footsteps could be made out. One set was obviously heavier than the others. Troy took a deep breath, slowly propping himself off the cot. Two Fire Brothers and another massive frame positioned themselves in front of Troy's cell, staring inwards.  
  
He was an absolutely massive Koopa, sheeted in muscle mass drastically greater than that of even the Sledge Brother – Troy wasn't aware if that made him even more catastrophically heavy, but he stood in a half-hunched position, wrapped in a gigantic plate-armored shell, with large spikes jutting out in symmetrical arrangement. His head was topped with a fiery- red tuft of hair, on which both sides large horns protruded. As the cell door slid to the side, he stared down upon Troy, the glare of his dark red eyes piercing into him. He nodded to both sides, dismissing the Fire Brothers. He set his sight on Troy again, giving his head a quick tilt to the side.  
  
"Get dressed," his voice rumbled. He passed a generic green shell to Troy. "You're coming with me."  
  
Troy stared at the shell. Bowser's massive claw nearly wrapped around the shell. He could very easily have crushed it, and whatever was unlucky enough to be inside. Troy reached forward, slowly dragging the shell from Bowser's palm, and fitted himself into it as fast as possible. As Troy clamped down the shell's restraints and secured himself in, Bowser had already begun down the hall. Troy kept several steps behind him lest the behemoth find reason to tear him apart.  
  
While Troy had never been in any of the Koopa jail fortresses before, he already knew that they were beyond a restricted area. He glanced to his side, peering into the cages, and the open-air chambers after that, furnished with a table, a chair and little else. Troy came to the conclusion that they were obviously interrogation rooms of some sort. "...where are we going... sire?" he slowly turned his head to Bowser, keeping his eyes on the wall. They passed the stone stairwell that led down to the last, deepest level of the dungeon. Bowser slowed to a stop at the end of the hallway, as did Troy. Bowser suddenly drove his hand into a large crack in the wall, fiddling inside it until a loud click echoed through the barren hallway. He removed his limb, stepping back as the wall suddenly slid away. Inside was a room not unlike the empty rooms he had seen earlier. He stepped to the side, allowing Troy access. He moved in after, the wall closing behind him.  
  
The chamber was illuminated only by a short beam of light turning in a short radius, the device emitting the ray hanging a short distance from the ceiling. Troy knew it as a rotoscope, a high-intensity and physically damaging beam of light that was often used as a security device in the lower-level fortresses. Wasting no more time, he quickly seated himself, while Bowser moved to the opposite side.  
  
"This is..."  
  
"...one of the interrogation chambers originally installed in this fortress." Bowser finished. He let his arm fall to the table, raising it again with a few papers crumpled in his grip. "...I don't want to waste anymore time... your name is... Troy Kiemen, from the 99th brigade of the Koopa Troop."  
  
"...well... yes."  
  
Bowser let his arm droop again, his expression rapidly becoming more fierce. "It's come to my attention that you had attempted to escape Dark Land earlier this evening. Is this correct?"  
  
"...yes." Troy said dully.  
  
"Tell me, Troy, what would compel you to leave the realm of the Koopas, when you were NOT on any registered leave and were distinctly ordered to remain in Dark Land on reserve duty?"  
  
"I was..." Troy's face suddenly went pale. "...we were ... told earlier by my brigade commander that the 80th through 99th brigades would be sent out of Dark Land to the Mushroom Kingdom."  
  
"Can you be any more vague?" Bowser waved his arm across.  
  
"I was..." Troy's voice cracked. "I was running away. I was escaping duty! My friends were out on leave... and they'd gotten me a registration for the Dark Land Kart Tourney! But... now I have no idea why I did something as ridiculous as abandon my post! I'm just some slacker who thought of himself before the Troop! I'm ashamed of myself... and I wish to make it up in any possible! I will take whatever punishment you give me!" Troy suddenly rocked back, sulking in his chair. He rubbed his forehead, shuddering as he staring up at the Koopa king.  
  
Bowser's forehead wrinkled. "Wrong."  
  
Troy blinked. "Huh?"  
  
"You know EXACTLY what's going on. Far too much for your own good, in fact. You were not headed to the Dark Land Kart Tourney at all... you were headed PAST the Tourney grounds... and out of Dark Land... on a beeline for the Mushroom Kingdom!!"  
  
Troy quickly stood, glancing all about. "...what?! Why would I be going to the Mushroom Kingdom already?!"  
  
"I find it LARGELY convenient that you would be leaving the grounds the night after being told your waypoints for the next patrol route. You cretin... I don't know how, I don't know when, but you found out EXACTLY what's going to be happening then... and that information is largely confidential. If you had managed to inform those buffoons in the Mushroom Kingdom about our plans the Koopa Troop would have been ruined!"  
  
Troy was literally at a loss of words. "...you're going to INVADE?!?"  
  
"Don't PLAY DUMB, you insolent..." Bowser's fist was clenched, shaking violently. "You will see what happens to those meddling in the most internal affairs of the Koopa Troop..."  
  
Troy whirled around as the wall parted again, a quartet of blue-shelled Troopas bursting in and rushing Troy. He was knocked to the floor, letting out a hack as the squad wrestled him to the ground. Troy tried to fight, but was quickly overpowered by the high-ranking Troopas. One delivered a blow to his head, knocking him out cold as the other three scooped him up and quickly shuffled him out of the hidden chamber. Bowser watched as the wall shut again before slowly turning. "...make sure he never sees the light of day again."  
  
********  
  
The muddy wastes of Dark Land, only worsened by the rain, were now quiet. The large fortress off in the distance was still lit, noise coming from every orifice, even though there was but one prisoner inhabiting it. Outside, a bright green flash of light filled the air as an object rocketed towards the ground. With a piercing shriek, it slammed straight into the ground, causing fissures to spread in all directions as the ground itself rippled from the force. As the mud finished raining from the sky, the mist soon parted, revealing the massive avian standing upon the epicenter. His arms were spread, as were his wings directly above. His face remained emotionless, a loud thrum sounding as the eyes of the beast opened. They were pupilless, radiating with an unearthly light. In one split second, the previous memories of the body made themselves known to its host.  
  
"...alright." He said in a deep voice. "...it is time... I begun searching." Slowly his arms were lowered to his side, and his tough neck twisted with a dull crack. He turned it the other way, emitting another loud snap. As the physical form it inhabited slowly began accustomed again to movement, it very quickly realized that this terrain was alien even to his memories.  
  
Checking around himself once more, he turned to his left and started walking. His massive taloned feet dug into the ground, making every step of his firm and powerful. He would have to refer to himself as a he from this point on, noticing his male status.  
  
A single sweatdrop rolled down.  
  
Thankfully, powerful magicks began to make themselves known in his mind. He held his arm forward, causing small stones to rise from the ground. Soon their physical form began to rupture, and he brought them together, creating some kind of gelatin-like compound from the hard rock. It floated towards him, wrapping around his waist. Soon it had molded to his body, creating stone armor from his waist down. Oddly, he felt no increase in his weight. Already he was somewhat perplexed by the abilities of whatever race he had chosen, although he did assume they would be very handy at some point. Clenching his fists, he walked straight – hoping dearly he would find some sort of civilization before his body's desire for food and drink would settle in.  
  
********  
  
Peach's fingers continually drummed on the counter inside of the admissions booth. Her other hand was busy deforming her face as she leant on it. Toad was slumped over next to her, sleeping in a rather uncomfortable position. The rain had stopped, but the air was unbearably chilly as a result of the downfall.  
  
"Toad." Peach said dully.  
  
"Yuh?..." Toad responded.  
  
"This isn't what I thought of when I was told to give everyone a royal welcoming."  
  
"Meh." Toad collapsed again.  
  
Peach glanced at her watch. "Curfew's starting in two minutes. Let's get inside." She stood from her stool. Toad tried to push himself off his and landed facefirst on the floor. Any other day Peach would have assisted him in prying his face off the ground, but it was important that she got inside before her body ceased operating from the heavy concentration of boredom in the air.  
  
Eventually they both got outside, Peach leading as she opened the small wooden door right next to the giant gate as it began to close. She slowed down again as another retainer rounded the corner up the street, jogging at an obnoxiously slow pace towards them. His attire was a light beige, he was a bit taller than Toad, and had a large grey mustache that bobbed as he moved.  
  
"Toadsworth." Peach said blankly. "What are you doing here."  
  
"It's a most odd occurrence, your highness, see..." as Peach and Toad walked around him, he turned as well, keeping pace with them. "...anyways, I was just looking through my telescope, since the sky is ever so clear following this dreaded storm-"  
  
"Can you make it fast?" Peach began to speed up.  
  
"...oh, yes... anyways, I happened to be looking for the constellations nearest to Star Road when the most peculiar thing happened... one star had just appeared out of nowhere, in a great green flash... I may have found some kind of nova! Such a spectacle of nature, who would have thought that I would see such phenomena with my own ey-"  
  
"TOADSWORTH." Peach repeated.  
  
"...yes, anyways... I was watching this new star for quite a while before it just upped and fell out of the sky. The most odd thing. Usually you have some kind of warning. The odd thing, though, if my math is correct it's not falling anywhere near the Mushroom Kingdom. If I'm not mistaken, it was headed straight for Dark Land."  
  
This caught Peach's attention, if for a moment. It was a widely believed legend that the Star Road, a lost kingdom in the sky, was responsible for the answering of the most solemn of wishes, and went about distributing them upon the earth by shooting stars, or so went common belief. Naturally, one who made insecure or harmful wishes was disregarded by the Star Road and its theoretical inhabitants. Peach recalled one kingdom that the Mushroom Kingdom was in talks with, a kingdom of Koopas that reigned throughout Dark Land and the Land's End. A trade route was to be arranged that would allow the Kingdom to pay raw currency for the vast deposits of oil at Land's End. It was during an orienteering trip through the outskirts of the Mushroom Kingdom that the mightiest of Koopas, the king Bowser, blatantly laughed when he was told the legend of the Star Road – Peach couldn't remember word for word, but Bowser himself had made some particularly rough comments about seeing what was up there someday.  
  
She was disgusted largely – she came to the conclusion that the Koopa kingdom saw it as yet another material possession... as they saw the riches of the Mushroom Dynasty.  
  
"What would Star Road be doing sending something out that far?" Peach scoffed. "...you think anyone out there has a heart in their chests?"  
  
Toadsworth backed off slightly at the princess' sudden outburst. "...well... I... just thought it... would be of some interest."  
  
Peach heaved a sigh. "...sorry... forget about it, let's just get inside before we all freeze to death..."  
  
********  
  
Troy slumped up against the wall, shivering. Even hiding within his shell couldn't stop the coldness from permeating to his core. Wherever he was, it was safe to assume that no living thing belonged there. His head craned up as his eyes squinted again. The room was pitch black, save for one tiny of speck of light far off in the distance, which was obviously coming from upstairs. He had been banished to the lowest level of the dungeons, one he had no idea existed – obviously walking by the downstairs access on the way to his meeting was just one very badly planned occurrence. Troy hunched up again in a desperate attempt to keep his body temperature high, lest his cold-blooded system slowly begin to shut down.  
  
Moreso disturbing to him than his pain and physical state was the atmosphere. He took another deep breath, trying to force it from his mind. The dirt was no longer gritty, but clumped together by some sort of long- dried liquid... the air had a putrid scent to it, even by Troy's reptilian standards. It was mysterious, largely unnatural to him... but whatever it was, it made him wretch. He planted his hands against the ground to push himself up, but found him reeling his right arm back in pain. He tried to examine it in vain, the pitch darkness giving him no indication. He rubbed his hands together, feeling a stinging sensation come over them – a lukewarm liquid, a shard of cool metal...  
  
"...what... IS this?..." Troy muttered in shock. He continued to mock-examine his hand, eventually giving up and letting his hand fall to his side. He brought it back up, quickly ripping the small shard of iron from his hand with a pained yelp. He threw the heavy scrap of metal across the room, it landing with a dull thud against the moist ground. He kept his fist clenched instinctively, his cut eventually clotting. This compelled him to give it another look. He faintly saw a massive gash across his hand, as well a small amount of dull red liquid already dried onto his hand. He slowly drew his hands back, sulking down even further. Whatever was happening, he did NOT like it one bit. "...Bowser... he's set on launching a full-scale attack on the Mushroom Kingdom."  
  
His head craned towards the ceiling. "...but... why?"  
  
A disturbing thought hit him. His eyes widened as his head lowered back into its stationary position. "...there's no way the Koopa Troop would be able to fill up all the cells in this facility. They've... been saving it for use in their Mushroom Kingdom campaign all the long!" he slammed both his fists into the ground, this time hitting dirt. "...why?! WHY is the Koopa Troop stepping up for a possible WAR? How can Bowser just up and launch a rampage like this?! I didn't join the Troop to join in a slaughter!... I came here to serve my country passively... not... anything... like... THIS!!" Troy pounded the dirt repeatedly, letting out grunts as he forced himself further into the dirt. He stopped a minute later, completely sliding down against the ground.  
  
Something began to gnaw away at his being... something he had no idea was present... something that he feared...  
  
It was at that moment that he was almost certain he was being watched. Who by, he had no clue. But the possibility was there – these levels of the dungeons were obviously designed for the most intense of imprisonment... and other things. What things were these?... almost immediately he felt pain shooting through his scar.  
  
Troy made the sudden realization that he and the Koopa Troop were in very, very deep trouble.  
  
********  
  
A taloned grip slammed down into the dirt once more. The avian slowly pivoted his head upwards, his massive frame buckling in response. He was upon a hill, higher than others in the area. In the distance, across the barren wastes, he could make out clearly a massive fortress, encased in a wide yard and the tall walls surrounding it. He slowly advanced down the hill, beginning his long walk towards the superstructure.  
  
"...this is where these thoughts are coming from..." he mumbled, both his claws glowing an intense green. "...it is beginning... and it must be stopped."  
  
He glanced over the base once again. He happened to notice the main gates open – the path leading from it looked like it had been trampled almost nonstop for the past many hours. His eyes dimmed as he continued to move forward, starting into a jog, then a run, then a great sprint. His powerful legs took him down the hill and over the next at blinding speed, on a straight line to the massive compound out in the distance.  
  
"...something still lurks within..." his eyes slimmed, emitting a dull green light. Energy continued to charge in his arms as he zeroed in.  
  
A guard Troopa at the entrance looked up from his own leave pamphlet, vaguely noticing a rising cloud of dust on the horizon. He shrugged, returning to his seat on his side of the moat. He glanced over it for another minute before instinctively looking up again. The massive avian towered over him like a bad omen.  
  
"...hi?" the Troopa squeaked. A massive clawed hand reached down, snatching the turtle up by the throat.  
  
"You will let me in. I don't believe I need to be any more blunt." His hand began to shake as he squeezed tighter.  
  
"N-no wa-agghh!!" the Troopa's eyes went wide as he finally got a good glimpse of the warrior's massive frame. He quickly slid inside his shell, escaping the chokehold, and stuck his head out the bottom. "CLOSE THE DRAWBRIDGE!!"  
  
The being glanced over. The bridge's supports let out a dull clank as the medieval machinery began to slowly raise the bridge into a locked position. He simply tossed the Koopa over his shoulder and ran straight at the moat, leaping at the last second completely over the ramparts of the castle, which momentarily stopped the raising as every Troopa nearby stared on in bewilderment as the enormous bird landed with a crash in the fortress' courtyard, dashing for the nearest substair.  
  
"Call for reinforcements!!" one of the Troopas poked his head out of the guard booth.  
  
"We can't!" the other replied.  
  
"...why?!"  
  
"Because all our residing troops have already been called to the front lines!... the invasion begins... tonight."  
  
The avian moved with godlike grace, tearing down the lower hallways with a choreographed sprint. What few Troopas hadn't noticed him were already on his tail, securing whatever weapons they could from the racks on the walls. Glancing over his shoulder, he slowly slowed to a stop in the middle of the cramped hallway, allowing the soldiers to get closer to him. He turned, facing them as the slowed down, readying their arms. "Alright!! Whoever you are... you're coming with us!"  
  
The bird reeled back. "...hm. Is that so. I'm afraid... I can't comply."  
  
"WE'VE got the weapons here!"  
  
His eyes narrowed. "...oh, so very wrong..."  
  
The lead Troopa charged blindly, waving around his stubby broadsword. It was caught effortlessly by the avian's claws. As the Troopa tried to wrest it free, it was snapped like a twig in the intruder's grasp. He launched forward with his other hand, slamming his palm into the front of the soldier's shell and discharging a blast of energy. The soldier was launched backwards with a shriek, smoke pouring from the wound. The other two looked on in horror as the Troopa slowly climbed back to his feet, the alien in the meanwhile gathering another two bolts of energy and hurling them. Both blasts hit home, completely destroying the front of the other guards' shells and sending them hurtling backwards. Dispelling his charge, he turned, diving into another substair, dashing down two more floors before exiting. He sped up, waving his arms madly as he careened down the hallway.  
  
"It... is here..." he snarled, setting his eyes on the wall at the end of the corridor. He emitted a loud screech as his feet left the floor, his sleek form launching through the air and down the hall. With an enormous crash, he smashed through the hidden door at the end of the hall, charging up another sphere of energy in his hand. He stepped forward, firing off charges of energy into the cloud of dust. More explosions rang out, but little else. He stood still, watching patiently as the dust cleared. He was in a sort of interrogation room, laden with debris from his entrance. The table was turned over, the rotoscope on the ceiling was no longer functional, and the entire back wall had been blown out, exposing the dark horizon off in the distance.  
  
"...what?!" he roared, his eyes flaring up with an intense light. "...but... my sense... told me it was HERE!!" he spun around again, trembling in almost a paranoid manner. "...perhaps... it made its entry into this world via this room... and now... this entire fortress is corrupt..." his eyes slimmed, filtering his surroundings again. "...there is one on a lower level with a low level of corruption... I must get him or her out of here before a full corruption can occur..." he strode forward, turning and stepping into the stairwell. He broke into another run, darting down the spiral staircase. Slowly but surely all light around him ceased.  
  
Troy glanced to his side as heavy footsteps rang out, heading his direction in a hurried frenzy. He was beginning to wonder what that racket upstairs was – he was answered abruptly as massive figure bounded into the room, his faint outline making him look that much more menacing – but what stood out were his beaming eyes, glowing with turquoise light. Troy blinked, leaning forward as far as his wall chains would allow him. "...who are you?..."  
  
The beast turned, setting his eyes on Troy almost as if the darkness had no effect on him at all. "...you... you stand out in this building... you are the least corrupt... thus, I must get you out of here before any more damage occurs."  
  
Troy shivered. "What are you talking about?"  
  
"You appear to be imprisoned. Perhaps it would be easier to say I've come to set you free."  
  
Troy stared blankly at the imposing figure. Was he hearing this right? It must've been hours since he was left in the deepest dungeons of the fortress and a jailbreak had just begun. His grin spread a mile wide as he held out his arms. "Alrighty." He just about threw himself back again as the creature held up his arms, two bright green blades of energy extending from his wrists. They were brought down, swiftly severing the heavy chains and letting them fall to the dirt with a dull whump. Troy leapt to his feet, staring at his savior with equal parts confusion and wonder.  
  
"Get on my back." he ordered. "You will not be able to keep up with me on foot."  
  
Troy obediently did as he was told, grabbing onto one of the beast's massive scales and slinging himself up onto his back. He wrapped his arms around his upper torso, holding on for dear life as his mount leapt into an instantaneous sprint. He aimed for the narrow opening that led into the stairwell, banking to his side and climbing the shaft at an alarming rate. It took them mere seconds to reach the top, after which they both turned right on a dime and headed for the hidden interrogation room.  
  
"Eep." Troy squeaked, watching painfully as they both screamed towards the plain wall. The bird suddenly leapt, digging into the hard ground with his claws before rocketing forward into the air, smashing straight through the hidden door while Troy struggled to keep his grip. Granite rained down behind Troy as the creature landed in the middle of the chamber, narrowly missing the table. He glowed with a bright green aura as he leapt forward again, this time a shriek following as they crashed straight through the next wall ahead of them. Troy kept his eyes closed, letting out a yelp as debris bombarded him. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in darkness once again. Keeping his grip, he glanced behind him. They had completely broken through the heavily fortified walls of the fortress, and now were headed down a wide underground tunnel. "What... how did you know there'd be a tunnel here?!"  
  
"Because it was headed this way." He responded.  
  
"What was headed this way?" Troy mumbled.  
  
"There's no time to explain. Hang on for a while longer, I'll find somewhere we can rest for a while." He surveyed his surroundings as they whizzed by him. "...if you're wondering, I happened to notice another switch on the back wall of the interrogation room similar to the one that led into the room itself when I was first in there. Whatever was beyond would probably be a most secret place... and it appears to be so. We should be safe down here for now."  
  
********  
  
Troy hunched up against the dirt walls, warmed somewhat by a small fire that had been started in the center of one of the cavernous rooms him and his partner had come across. It was started by tiny shreds of wood and fueled by garbage that Troy had located further on in the tunnel. It itself was entering the initial stages of decay, so he was able to confirm that no one had in fact been down here for a long time. It came upon Troy that the structure of the corridor itself was similar to that of the pipe mazes that dotted most of the inner continent. No one was sure how they had gotten there in the first place, but most of the inland was connected by labyrinthine caverns which one could enter through large green pipes that were scattered throughout the overworld. Troy had only been in the caverns twice, spending most of his life in Dark Land, at the Land's End.  
  
With the entrance where it was, it was easy to come to the conclusion that the cavern where the two were was an emergency exit from the fortress, known only by the highest-ranking of the Koopa Troop, up to and including the King of the Koopas himself, Bowser.  
  
Troy glanced up from the flames. Being a recently made tunnel, it was much better ventilated than the labyrinth that he remembered. The exhaust from the flames, and the revolting stench that came from the garbage within, was less noticeable than he would have figured. "...hey."  
  
The avian loomed over the fire, leant forward in a crouch. "...yes?"  
  
"...well, after being somehow saved from eternal punishment and such, I'm just a teensy bit curious who you are, what you are, what you were doing at the prison... and what obliged you to set me free."  
  
The figure stared at Troy with emotionless eyes before scooping up a small stick from the ground in his massive hand, poking at the flames with it. "...my name... I do not know my name. I have no idea what I am either. I was sincerely hoping someone in this world would be able to inform me."  
  
Troy heaved a sigh. "I'm being serious here."  
  
"As am I." the beast continued to prod at the fire, half-muttering to himself. "...this physical form... I have no knowledge of what it accomplished in its previous life... or its wisdom and experience... but if I could find something to trigger its memory..."  
  
Troy stared blankly at him as he continued to babble. "...uh... whatever... yessir..."  
  
"Sir." He boomed. He raised his head, his eyes beaming with a newfound vigor. "Sir! That's... I don't know what, but that's... that's it! My name... is Sir... my name... is Sirius! Thank you, my friend, I think I may have broken into his memory... soon, with enough perseverance I should be able to recall everything that resides within this being's physical mind..."  
  
"That's dandy." Troy said dully. "...anyways... about this entire raid you just pulled... why were you at a Koopa prison fortress? And what exactly compelled you to save me of all people?"  
  
"I came to the fortress..." Sirius dropped off, staring intensely at Troy. Troy glared back, blinking.  
  
"...and?" Troy asked.  
  
"...am I sure I can trust you with such knowledge?"  
  
"Knowledge of what?"  
  
"Something that may or may not have the potential to destroy your world."  
  
Troy shook his head. "Hey, we were talking about you here, how did the end of the world come into this..."  
  
"Because my being here, its being here, and your being here are all deeply intertwined."  
  
"Stop, stop, stop..." Troy waved his arms frantically. "Can you be any more vague? Just tell me, what were you doing there?!"  
  
Sirius stared into the darkness, his head drooping slightly as it turned back to Troy. "...I understand you may not believe me, but I have come from the heavens to this world for an important purpose – to stop another extradimensional force from embedding itself into this world and draining it of all life, to put it mildly. I was right behind it when it came into this physical plane – its first objective would be to find a physical form in which to begin its assault on this world. I traced it to this fortress. I launched an attack on it, hoping to locate and try to prevent it from manifesting fully into a form with which it could begin its rampage."  
  
Troy's heart ran cold. Looking over Sirius' massive frame once more, it was feasible to argue that the distinctly alien physique before him could HAVE been an astral figure. "...and as for you, Sirius, I'm going to share some confidential information with you..."  
  
Sirius opened his beak to speak, but let it close again. "Make it quick."  
  
"...my name is Troy. This is a prison fortress built by the Koopa Troop, of which I am one of. I was trying to run away from duty to attend a go-kart championship in a land a short ways from here... but I was captured by my own brigade, jailed and eventually brought before our king... I tried to plead my case and accept my punishment, but he didn't believe me... he had thought that I was fleeing to the Mushroom Kingdom beyond to report that he was going to launch a full-scale invasion on it!"  
  
Sirius' eyes widened. "Is this the truth?!"  
  
Troy nodded grimly.  
  
"...this is why I never found it when I came... do you know when he's intending to orchestrate the attack?"  
  
"He couldn't be thinking of attacking already, could he?" Troy mumbled.  
  
Sirius' face twisted as he turned away again, a cold fire in his eyes. "...it has evaded me again! I have no choice but to follow, and hope he doesn't begin any bloodshed..."  
  
He faintly saw a massive gash across his hand, as well a small amount of dull red liquid already dried onto his hand.  
  
Troy shook his hand, shrugging off the disturbingly realistic mental picture. Now that he looked back on it, his injury... blood? It was almost alien to him. Had he ever witnessed his own cold blood before? Troy glanced down at his hand, again checking over the rapidly diminishing cut. "...bloodshed..."  
  
He brought it back up, quickly ripping the small shard of iron from his hand with a pained yelp.  
  
Troy stared back at Sirius. "...pain. Bloodshed leads to pain."  
  
"You have learned a very important lesson." Sirius began walking off into the darkness. "...the reason I freed you was because... you stood out in that building like a lamp in the darkness. From what I understand the dark essence had already enveloped that fortress... and you were the least corrupted by it, you received but a smack of the potential destruction that could occur but were otherwise not afflicted by it as many others within were. This may be due in part to the fact that you may have been in that fortress for a shorter time than anyone else within since the corruption began. Before I depart on my quest, it is mercy that drives me to purge you of what corruption you have received."  
  
Troy looked up at Sirius, dumbstruck. "...how are you going to do that?"  
  
Sirius spun around gracefully, marching off into the darkness. "Come with me."  
  
********  
  
Troy trudged on, slightly hunched over as his tongue hung out awkwardly. Slowly his head pitched up so he could get another look at Sirius – it would have pleased him to see, at the very least, that he was becoming somewhat tired from their long march – they had been on the move for nearly three hours now, and had taken many turns – obviously they were no longer on the evacuation path used by the fortress, but instead in a labyrinth of some sort. Troy glanced around again. Even the dirt at their depth in the maze had taken on a lighter, healthier tone – weeds and many odd types of lichen that Troy hadn't known existed sheeted the earth around him in patches. They were obviously out of Dark Land's grip, and in the mainland pipe maze – but obviously at a lower depth than had been traversed recently.  
  
"...we're... in kinda deep, aren't we?..." Troy mumbled audibly. He got no response. "...uh, you DO know where we're going, right?"  
  
"I'm going by my senses." Sirius replied emotionlessly.  
  
"...that's... great..." Troy paled.  
  
"...we are getting close, however..." Sirius' head pivoted, his eyes following a large rat as it scurried into a small side tunnel. "...it shouldn't be more than a few minutes at this rate."  
  
"Where ARE we headed?" Troy muttered.  
  
"Patience." Sirius scowled. Troy slowed as if he had been hit hard in the face. Sighing, he followed Sirius closely as they turned right again, heading down a steep incline. Sirius seemed to have no trouble with the slope, but Troy slowed to a crawl as the loose dirt threatened to remove itself from under his heavy boots. As Sirius hit level ground, he continued walking forward, letting Troy tumble to the ground with a dull thud, a dust cloud rising. Troy propped himself up, spewing out dust as he continued to follow Sirius into a rapidly narrowing pass. There were now small stone tablets lining the walls, inscribed with odd symbols and ancient text.  
  
Troy slowed down as Sirius halted in the next room. "...is this what you were looking for?"  
  
Both were standing in a small chamber of earth – large shards of stone littered the ground alongside all the staple rocks and vegetation that was commonplace throughout the catacombs. What caught Troy's attention, however, was the large crystal lodged in the ground, tilted somewhat as it jut out of the earth. Within was some sort of artifact that Troy was able to fully make out as he edged closer to it.  
  
"...a key?" Troy stared with morbid fascination at the comically large tool – it had a large, yellow, almost cage-like handgrip attached to the bottom of a tall, thin shaft that suddenly turned in on itself at the top to form a hollow half-moon to which the teeth were attached. "...you led us to a... key?"  
  
"This is no ordinary key." Sirius stepped closer, now between it and Troy. "...it is not in your interest to understand. Now, come, place your hand on the crystal." Sirius stepped to the side again, allowing Troy passage. Troy shot a confused glance to Sirius as he stepped up, lifting his scarred hand closer to the gem. It glowed with a soft green light as Troy brought it closer, eventually planting his palm on it. Troy let out a yelp as a pulse of energy was sent into his hand, tearing it away. He held his arm up with his other hand, surveying it – the scar was now completely null, the dark red clot now completely black. However, it no longer throbbed with the low thrum of pain it had before. Troy twisted his head up, staring dumbstruck at Sirius.  
  
"...what did it do?..." Troy shuddered, letting his hand fall back to his side.  
  
"You have been purged. What MORE do I need to say?"  
  
"...h-hey." Troy held up his arm, causing Sirius to stop and slowly turn.  
  
"...what is it?" Sirius' eyes let off a soft pulse of light, letting Troy know full enough he was waiting to leave.  
  
"...this key... what is it? How did it just heal me like that?... how did it stop the pain?"  
  
"Your business here is done." Sirius growled. "...be happy you were able to see this firsthand... this is normally not a sight for mortal eyes."  
  
"Was pain a feeling for my mortal sense?" Troy shot back.  
  
Sirius paused, eventually facing away from Troy. "...no. No it wasn't. I can see it in your eyes... this is alien to you. All of it is. The blood, the pain, the anger, the vengeance sworn by your ruler, it is all a new experience of yours... it is something I seek to stop before it manifests itself in this world for eternity."  
  
"Sirius." Troy said firmly. "...what is the key?"  
  
"That is not for you to know, boy!" Sirius bellowed.  
  
"Tell me!" Troy stepped forward, still clutching his arm. "...I've felt this pain you speak of, do you think I'm going to stand by and let it grow?! I need to know... what is bloodshed? What is pain? What is this force acting upon me? Upon the Koopa Troop? Upon the King?!"  
  
crikk  
  
Sirius prepared to speak, but felt a ripple cut through his thoughts. "...what... are you suggesting?"  
  
"...I saw and felt something I was never intended to... something this world was never intended to, that's what you're trying to say, right? Sirius, I want to know – what is causing this? What are these feelings that are being forced upon me, this world? It's what's causing the Koopa Troop to blindly march into battle, right? They, too, want to know what bloodshed and pain are?"  
  
cr-crikk  
  
"...I want to know what it is too. But... I don't want to see it carried out..."  
  
"You want to witness it."  
  
"No."  
  
"You want to understand it."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You want to evolve."  
  
"Yes!" Troy furiously nodded.  
  
cr-crik-crikk  
  
Troy let his head fall, his breath becoming ragged. He glanced up again, expecting to be staring into Sirius' defiant face. Instead, he found one of utter shock. Troy blinked, whirling around. The crystal in the ground was now standing straight upon it, fissures beginning to form in its outer shell. Troy felt his heart leap as he nodded in confirmation. "...I want to evolve!"  
  
The crystal pulsed once more, almost in confirmation, before exploding into dozens of shards of light. Troy shielded himself as the laser-like shreds of hard crystal were sent in every direction, lodging into the wall at random spots. From within, another flash of light leapt, this time dissipating into the air and letting the key within fall to and stick itself into the dirt. Troy let his hands slowly drop from his face, opening an eye. The ground underneath the key was completely blasted apart and scorched heavily. Thinking of nothing else, he turned back to Sirius.  
  
"...by the gods." Sirius stared blankly at the artifact, still teeming with life.  
  
"...S-Sirius?!" Troy spat. "What do we d-"  
  
"Troy." Sirius' eyes floated. "Take the key."  
  
"...what?!"  
  
"Do it. Do it now."  
  
Troy glanced at the key, and back to Sirius, and back to the key, and back to Sirius once more. He slowly moved, inching towards the relic as the ground around it still smoldered. He continued to advance, his boots sinking into the heated dirt. He raised his hand, wafting it over the handle of the device – he was shocked to find there was a frigid air about it, almost as if it were consciously counteracting the heat produced by the crystal's destruction. His hand suddenly lunged forward, seizing the key's handle within its grip. Troy slowly lifted the key, pulling it slowly out of the ground. Very little of it was actually embedded in the earth, overall making the key just a bit longer than three feet. Once more he looked back to Sirius in confusion.  
  
"...we will camp here for now." He said, still somewhat disoriented.  
  
********  
  
Peach and Toad approached the palace gates, somewhat slowed by the large patches of mud that were scattered across the castle's usually pristine lawn. Toad removed his cap, wringing it. A large puddle grew in front of him. "...this... is bad."  
  
"Wooster'll take care of it." Peach sighed. "...he'd be the one to take a stroke at this, not me."  
  
Toad was already in front of the gates, undoing the giant padlock on them with a small key. "...I'm surprised the guards aren't still here... they must've been requested to help setting up temporary settlements. Maybe we DID get quite a few visitors tonight."  
  
Peach shrugged. "Were they any useful here anyways?"  
  
"That's their primary objective, defend the castle." Toad said dully. He wrenched the key free from the slot, wrapping both of his hands around one of the gate's bars and dragging the gate open. "...you of all people should know that."  
  
"...judging from the history texts I've come across in the libraries the last threat the Kingdom's had was 49 years ago when three Goombas stomped the flower gardens flat."  
  
"Better safe than sorry." Toad slipped into the gap in the gate. Peach was ready to enter when she heard a dull clunk from within.  
  
"...oh, you IDIOT!" a raspy voice inside muttered. "THAT'S not the one!"  
  
"...uh... how was I supposed to know who it was...?"  
  
Peach edged closer to the gate, ready to peek around the edge – but before she got there, another figure lunged out from the shadows, arcing around and yanking Peach backwards. A boomerang was being pulled back against her throat. Hearing the commotion, the other two assailants leapt out from behind the gate. One was a stubby, light-skinned turtle with pink-rimmed shades, and the other was one of the many Sledge Brothers. Behind Peach, the Boomerang Brother pulled harder on Peach as he drug her back.  
  
"K-kh-koopas?!" Peach hacked.  
  
"Roy Koopa, that is." The shorter one chuckled as he moved in closer.  
  
"...but... I'm not Roy Koopa..." the Sledge mumbled.  
  
"That's right." Roy grumbled.  
  
"No one cares about me..." the massive tortoise proceeded to sob quietly. Roy rolled his eyes, throwing up his arms.  
  
"What do you want with me?!" Peach rose slightly, no longer being choked.  
  
"This is the beginning of things. We kidnap the Princess, designate it as an act of aggression, and continue moving the Koopa Troop to crush this kingdom of yours."  
  
"What? But the Mushroom Kingdom was just talking about trade deals with the Koopa kingdom just days ago!..."  
  
"You have things to trade that we would like. But would it not be easier for us to pummel you with our blatantly superior military and take it with no cost to us? For a regal figure you don't got a lotta sense about ya."  
  
"You won't get away with this!" Peach fought her way forward but was again drug backwards.  
  
"And who's gonna stop us? Your national guard which is busy makin' homesteads for every piece of fungus that walks through your door? I wouldn't call that an army... I'd call that a Salvation Army!"  
  
The Boomerang glanced over his shoulder, his loose helmet's straps flopping from side to side. "...someone's coming."  
  
"Let 'em come." Roy laughed. "...we're pretty much done here."  
  
Roy's grin twisted as the rain slowly resumed, although at a much more bearable level than before. At an intersection down the street, a man stepped from behind one of the buildings, slowly beginning to walk towards the group. He trudged straight through every puddle he found, his heavy boots virtually ignoring them. As he neared, Roy was eventually able to fully make him out. He was draped in baggy jean suspenders, with red clothing underneath. He had oddly bulky work gloves, white, wrapped around each hand. As he neared he blinked, getting rain in his eye. His mustache twitched. Eventually he made eye contact with Roy, reaching up and pulling down on his red cap. Roy was visibly confused by the M insignia on it.  
  
"Bah." Roy noticed to his side another man, taller and slim jog to his side, nearly identical to the other as far as features were concerned – although his clothing was green, and his own hat was emblazoned with an L. He had a large bag of various spanners, wrenches, and other pipe-mending tools slung over his shoulder. "...lemme guess... the alphabet had a party and you weren't invited."  
  
"Brother..." the taller one leant down. "...maybe we shouldn't be poking into other people's businesses."  
  
"Some help here?" Peach ground her teeth.  
  
"You see?" the shorter one glared at his partner as he walked forward, rolling up his sleeves. "...does this situation look a friendly exchange to you?"  
  
"Bleh." Roy waved his hand. "Get rid o'im." The Sledge nodded in response, seizing its massive hammer from the back of its shell and slinging it into both hands as he lumbered with a dull roar at his target. He slowed slightly as he wound up, sending the mallet behind his back, and brought it high into the air and down. The plumber hunched down, effortlessly rolling to the side as the hammerhead struck the earth, tearing up the cobblestone. This gave the other man enough time to slip around the other side, making a mad dash straight for Roy.  
  
The Boomerang sidestepped straight into his path, reeling back to sling his weapon forward – it was a bad judge of distance. He fell backwards as the tall man leapt up and literally ran up his body, pushing off of the soldier's helmet as he launched from it. Roy stared upwards as he plummeted back to earth. His attacker's shrill war cry aggravated him more the fact he was bringing his hand down on the Koopa Kid's forehead.  
  
"JUUUUDO CHOP-A!"  
  
He just hung in the air, the side of his hand pressed firmly against the bridge of Roy's specs. With a tinkle the two lenses fell against the ground. As did the chopper facefirst, no longer able to sustain his blatant defiance of physics. Roy, meanwhile, was flailing his limbs wildly.  
  
"I'M BLIND! I'M BLIND!!" he backed up, heading forward again and running in a circle before plowing into a lamppost. His attacker slowly rose to his feet, staring dully at the  
  
The Boomerang sat up, rubbing his beak. "If you stopped wearing those once in a while maybe you wouldn't be." He was suddenly drug up by the scruff of his neck by the Sledge, lumbering off with both him and Roy in his grip. Everyone watched blankly as the assailants slunk back into the darkness.  
  
"...uh..." both men exchanged glances.  
  
"...that was a bit easier than I was thinking." Peach dusted herself off, rubbing her throat with both hands as pain settled in. "...how were you two... able to stand up to the Koopas... like that? Especially one of the Sledge Brothers, AND one of the Koopa Kids?"  
  
They turned to each other again before the shorter one returned his gaze to the Princess, counting on his fingers. "One was all-a talk, the other appeared big, dumb and easy to distract, and the last was busy with you."  
  
Peach bowed. "Thank you, thank you – on behalf of the palace, I thank you. If there's any way I can congratulate you, feel free to make it known."  
  
"...could we... uh... get shelter?" the taller one removed his cap briefly, wringing it.  
  
"By all means," Peach nodded fervently. "come with me." She ducked back into the gates, shrugging Toad back to consciousness.  
  
********  
  
The dirt underneath Bowser was steadily growing thin. He turned around again, pacing over the same patch of ground he had covered a minute before. And the one before that. And the hour before that. Finally he slowed to a stop, pivoting his head. He glanced over the hill, in the valley below residing Toad Town – and the castle in its centre. Growling, he slammed his foot down, causing the ground to split underneath him and shake up everything in a wider radius – causing many Troopas to simply flee for their temporary barracks, and the mess tent to collapse as an entire battalion of Koopas were halfway through setting it up in the beating rain. Bowser was not one to keep waiting. "Grrraaahh!! Why is that brat taking so long?!"  
  
"With all due respect, dad, I was wondering why you sent that moron out there in the first place." A rainbow-plumed turtle stood to Bowser's side, carrying a teal, star-patterned ball under his arm.  
  
"Is it wrong for a father to have a teeeensy bit of trust in his son once in a while?" Bowser spat. "...rats, what was I thinking... Lemmy, get the others, it appears that kidnapping a princess is beyond your brother's feeble mind."  
  
"Can do." Lemmy bowed, walking ten feet to a polka-dotted tent, which stood out like a sore thumb amidst all the dark tarpaulin tents around it. "...one thing I was wondering though... why did you want to get the princess out of there in the first place?"  
  
Bowser raised his binoculars again, staring down at the asleep town. "Why, I'm glad you asked. For one thing, if we're going to attempt a hostile takeover, there's got to be at least ONE regal figure left alive to, you know, ACKNOWLEDGE their defeat, and two, if we somehow manage to mess this up, we'll still have them begging at our knees regardless while we hold their princess hostage." He dropped them, letting them dangle on a cord attached to his collar. Another blast of thunder filled the air, after which the figures of Roy and his posse were visible a short distance away. Bowser turned towards them, frowning. Roy approached his feet in a tired jog, bowing as the Boomerang and Sledge brothers knelt behind him. "...well, well... look what we have here."  
  
"...we were attacked..." Roy coughed.  
  
"By whom?" Bowser snarled. "Last I seem to recall the entire royal guard are still helping with the blasted shelters! I'm smelling more incompetence than anything else! Now go join your siblings... we're going to have to think up something different... and you two, rejoin the 82nd brigade and await further orders." He watched as both soldiers quickly leapt to their feet, darting off into the maze of tents – knowing much better than to stay around the vastly annoyed Koopa king. Bowser growled to himself, watching as Roy slumped off to the odd-looking tent adjacent to him. His face suddenly went blank as his massive arm twitched.  
  
That idiot... that attack could have been launched... two minutes and twelve seconds ago if he had brought the princess, right?  
  
Bowser clenched his fist, feeling it throb. "...yeah..." he glanced back to his hand – only to let out a horrified yell.  
  
********  
  
"Oh dear... oh dear." A white-shelled Troopa examined his gloves. Bowser, seated on the relatively dry ground in the tent, could only watch as the medic tried desperately to wash off the latex gloves in the field hospital's freshwater supply. The turtle finally unwrapped the gloves with a loud snap, throwing them down on the table. Bowser continued to clench his fist, stopping only to examine the huge bandaid wrapped firmly around his palm.  
  
"What's the deal?" Bowser grunted. "You figure out what it is?"  
  
"...whatever it is, it isn't coming off easily!" Kare turned around, glancing back at the gloves. They were completely covered in a thick, oily substance – to Bowser it looked like the sludge found abundantly in the Pipe Land wastelands, where one of the Troop leave resorts had been founded a short time earlier – he himself had spent a solid week there as a VIP – but its resistance to water made Bowser question that prediction. On second thought, he didn't particularly remember even the most pure of sludge being that black. At that moment, something about it made him feel extremely uneasy.  
  
"...so... when'll this clear up, whatever it is?" Bowser continued gripping the air. "...I'm telling you, I'm feeling perfectly fine. And there weren't any physical injuries, like you said..."  
  
"That ooze just came out of your hand, right? Isn't that what you said?" Kare continued to inspect the gloves, eventually turning around. "...right?"  
  
"...well, yes."  
  
"Then it's important you keep that bandaid where it is and sit tight. I'll do some quick research and see if I can find a remedy... I'd think the chances of us coming upon a disease not documented by me or my team are slim-to-none. I'm sure we'll get you back on your feet, sire, until then, I'd suggest sitting this operation out, at least for the time being."  
  
"Are you crazy?!" Bowser suddenly leant forward. "...we're standing right on the verge of Toad Town and I'm just going to 'sit out'?!"  
  
"Seriously, until we figure out exactly WHAT is happening to you, I insist you stay here and not in harm's way."  
  
Bowser was ready to give the Troopa the beating of a lifetime, but slumped back again – as much as he hated to admit it, Kare was probably right – the last thing he needed was to get a good hit of paralysis or go blind or deaf or endure some other externally amusing epidemic in the heat of battle. "...alright. But I want a transmission system set up here. I want surveillance from every eye and ear, and complete command when the attack commences. Do I make myself clear?"  
  
"Yes, sire. Just don't get too worked up about this, okay?" Kare darted out of the tent, flagging down a passing group of Troopas.  
  
Bowser slumped back, watching as the group all darted in different directions, fetching equipment that would be set up in the med tent for his use. His gaze floated over to the discarded gloves, still lying on the folding table nearby. Staring at the scattered ooze on it, the air in the tent suddenly turned frigid. He continued to stare as the mess slowly but surely came alive, detaching itself from the glove and slipping down onto the table – where it began to form a condensed ball of itself. Bowser felt another sharp pain from his claw – lifting it up he saw the substance again seeping from his hand, working around the bandaid. Once again, he sat frozen in confusion as it virtually came alive in his mind.  
  
CONQUER...  
  
********  
  
"Alright, are you SURE you know where we're going?"  
  
Troy continued to follow Sirius as he made his way through another twisting tunnel in the earth – though Troy had some comfort in knowing they were headed upwards to some degree. Unlike before he was keeping pace with the extradimensional entity, and rested the massive key over his right shoulder. "...say, are you by any chance going to tell me why we're bringing this thing with us... never mind that, what it IS in the first place? Or why it reacted to me? Or-"  
  
"It reacted to you because you were its designated owner." Sirius droned.  
  
"Then why'd it get stuck way down in the pipe maze catacombs?"  
  
"To keep it safe from those with dark hearts... and those who have been corrupted. Troy, I speak seriously when I say that the keyblade coming out of its hibernation is not a good thing for this world... or any other."  
  
"This is a keyblade..." Troy held the device forward, swinging it around. "...doesn't look like much of a blade."  
  
"You do not truly need a blade to pierce the heart."  
  
Troy slowed to a halt, giving Sirius an odd stare as he continued on. "...what's THAT supposed to mean?" Sirius continued on a short distance before he, too, went still. He glanced over his shoulder at the confused Koopa. "...was it something I said?"  
  
"...you are a fool."  
  
"Yes, I am an idiot. You might've come to the conclusion already that I know approximately zilch about what's happening with the Koopa Troop, have been a bit unsettled by a full-out prison break aimed at freeing ME, have no idea how or why I experienced bloodshed on my own behalf, and moreover, I'm a little bit miffed as to WHY I am hauling around a key to some amusingly-large DOOR somewhere."  
  
"I rest my case."  
  
"Alright. Sirius, I'm giving you a garden hose, and you're going to save the universe with it. Do you see what I mean? That's TOTALLY the vibe you're giving off here."  
  
Sirius stopped abruptly, heaving a sigh. "...alright... you know that extradimensional force I was talking about earlier, correct? That item you hold... that is the only weapon capable of destroying it. I myself have no idea how the Keyblades came to being, but it is clear that their purpose is to repel this dark force... I have seen many wield them... many of them eventually falling to the corruption and devastation of the Vast... their worlds quickly followed suit. I have come to this one in yet another attempt to make sure such a thing does NOT happen."  
  
"...what IS the Vast?" Troy asked slowly.  
  
"I do not know myself. All I understand is that it must be stopped by all means necessary. If my assumptions are correct and the Vast and the Koopa Troop's sudden decision to invade the Mushroom Kingdom are related somehow, then we may already be running out of time. If you wish to ever see any of your friends ever again, we must head them off and stop them before it is too late."  
  
Troy grit his teeth. "Isn't stopping an army a little bit out of my league?"  
  
"Not as long as you hold a Keyblade. This weapon is capable of many miraculous things – ones that only you, now, can put to use. This key can both unlock and lock a great world of things... it is up to you as a chosen Keyper to decide what to pursue."  
  
Troy shivered, examining the artifact once more. It gleamed in his hands, almost as if it had acknowledged. "...so, in theory I COULD stop the Koopa Troop with this."  
  
Sirius nodded.  
  
Troy was divided – living within the Troop for so long made it hard to question the Troop's, as well as Bowser's, choices or whether Sirius did in fact speak the truth, in which case Troy would be the only thing standing between the two largest kingdoms and utter anarchy. "...alright, I'll tell you what – I want to head to the Mushroom Kingdom and see this for myself. I'm not saying for sure if I'll help you or not. If this 'Vast' is there I'll see it with my own eyes, right?"  
  
"As long as your heart is true."  
  
Troy slung the keyblade over his shoulder. "Let's mosey."  
  
********  
  
Peach hummed to herself, walking up to the library door with a polished silver tray loaded with snacks. She was ready to scoff at not having a hand free to open the heavy wooden door, but noticed at the last moment that it was in fact open a fair amount. She stepped forward, nudging it open with her hip as she quickly slipped in. She set the tray down on a small coffee table, noticing the two suspender-clad men huddled inches from the fireplace – also somehow managing to block out every bit of light that left the flames. Peach coughed, causing the two to spin around.  
  
She smiled, seating herself. "...well, I don't have much to do... I'm interested in knowing what you two were doing out on a night like this, or what compelled you to come here of all places..."  
  
"We're not really keen on where here is, to tell you the truth." The green one sighed, glaring at the other. "...isn't that right, MARIO."  
  
"Luigi here was so set on cleaning this sewer conduit to the end, see..." the other acted it out with his hands. "...and it was dark in there, and it turned downwards really fast at the end... and WOOSH! So I go check out what's the matter, right? And I fall too!"  
  
"Bro, I'm about sure that if you'd put down your lunch for ONE second we wouldn't be HERE!"  
  
Peach raised an eyebrow. "You're from the pipe catacombs?"  
  
Luigi was visibly confused. "...I guess you could call it that."  
  
Peach was already up in arms. Luigi's eyes rolled from one side to the other as Peach started pacing. "How can anyone LIVE down there?! It's hostile enough down there with all the monsters... and no sources of food... no light..." she suddenly stopped, turning to face the two. "...forget the snacks... you two must be famished! You both wait here, I'm going to go whip up something a little more filling..." Mario opened his mouth to speak as the door slammed shut again.  
  
"Free meal." Luigi rubbed his hands together. "...I guess there's nothing wrong with that."  
  
"Humility is dead." Mario sighed.  
  
"That it is."  
  
Mario just glared.  
  
********  
  
Bowser stood within a ring televisions, offering surveillance on most of the brigades of Troopas that were present in the immediate vicinity of his tent. He casually glanced between them every so often, trying hard to fight off the rising sickness in his gut. Every so often he would look to the glove on the table – and the rapidly growing bulb of darkness next to it. Earlier it had been the size of a baseball, now it had ascended to almost the size of a basketball in the past half hour. He looked up with weary eyes as Kare dashed back into the tent, giving a mock salute.  
  
"Sire! Our scouts have reported that the princess has taken refuge back within the castle! Morton and Wendy are finding a way inside as we speak!"  
  
Bowser at any other time would have made some insulting comment relating the two, but simply nodded slowly. "You're really enjoying this scout position, aren't you."  
  
"Yes, sire, when all you do any other day is slap bandages on people, this sort of thing really gives you a rush, you know what I mean?..." his mile- wide grin rapidly faded as the king bowed his head. "...erm... are you alright there...?"  
  
"...no." Bowser growled. "...Kare, something is not right here..." he quickly glanced to the dark orb and back again. "...how many brigades are in their ready positions?"  
  
"Three, last I counted, five more are finishing their preperati-"  
  
"Call them back!!" Bowser bellowed. Kare would have split, save for the fact that it was very apparent that the massive turtle was going through some kind of wrenching pain. "...did you hear me?!"  
  
Kare stumbled back, now noticing the darkness on the table – now pulsing a steady purple. "...wha?!"  
  
"Tell everyone you can to get out of here!! Forget about the equipment, just clear out this place as fast as you can!! It wasn't I who ordered the invasion... it was this... THING!!"  
  
Kare pivoted back to the table. Standing atop it was a hunched figure, constructed from the same dark ooze that had been there moments ago – its surface warped wildly as it finished forming itself – more dark wisps of energy folded down over its 'face' as a pair of pupilless, white eyes bulged from it. Kare dove for one of the spare tent posts lying at his side, turning back and smashing the beast aside as it leapt at him, emitting a high pitch scream. As it hit the ground it went into a puddle, quickly rebuilding itself. Kare watched with deathly amazed eyes as it turned back in his direction.  
  
CONQUER...  
  
BLOODSHED...  
  
"Wh-wha?!" Kare dropped the post, backing away.  
  
"FORGET about me, you idiot!!" Bowser yelled. "Tell everyone that I have cancelled the at-"  
  
Kare stared in disbelief as the creature's arm morphed into a long spike. With one swift movement it drove it straight through Bowser's thick hide, causing him to rock backwards. Another pulse of dark energy was sent through him, causing him to scream out in pain. Wasting no more time, Kare leapt for the tent's exit, bursting back out into the vicious rainstorm that pounded the Koopa encampment. Soldiers were running around everywhere.  
  
"EVERYONE!!" Kare threw up his arms. "LISTEN TO ME!! BOWSER HAS CANCELLED THE-"  
  
A flash of Bowser's massive claw was the last thing he saw.  
  
By now dozens of soldiers had gathered around Bowser to see exactly what had happened. They found Kare's body at his feet. Minus life. Minus a head. Plus a growing puddle of blood that mingled with the rain to spread it all about the center of the camp. As utter chaos and confusion swept through the crowd, Bowser stood at its epicenter, his bloody claw raised high in the air – and purple light teeming from his eyes.  
  
"CONQUER."  
  
******** Comments? Queries? Death threats?  
  
Neodammerung chandk@stu.augustana.ca 


	2. One Flew Over the Koopa's Nest

Luigi found himself wondering what the Mushroom Dynasty was intending to do with a shipment of bunk beds. He himself had been told that they were to be used in the occaision that Toad Town found itself short a few hundreds, by disaster or whatever catastrophe could strike the Mushroom Kingdom - but beds? He sat up from his rest, lifting a massive mound of green quilt off of him. He might not have thought himself the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knew that there were far fewer beds here than would have been needed by the entirety of Toad Town. Again he found himself scratching his head. "...beds?"  
  
"Yes, beds." Mario slurred from the bunk below. He was just about suffocating himself in a cluster of blankets below, leaning closer to the wall. Both brothers had taken up residence in the palace's warehouse, which housed what seemed like an endless repitore of useless goods. "..you know, I hadn't thought much of saving royalty, wherever we are... but you think they could at least get us a guest room or something."  
  
Luigi shrugged. The massive chamber, while very plain, was surprisingly warm - while Mario thought otherwise, Luigi insisted to think of it as a really, really big bedroom. A very dark bedroom, but a comfortable one nonetheless. Sighing, he collapsed back against the mattress, rolling over and burying himself under the sheets. "...you know, I could LIVE down here, but don't you get the feeling that something's wrong with this entire situation?"  
  
"Whaddya mean?"  
  
"Well, those turtles weren't from this country, you heard everything Peach told us..." he shivered. "...man, I'd hate to see their oil deal fall apart from a racial attack like that."  
  
"Now..." Mario stared up. "...we're not going to get worked up about it, if everything goes well we're gonna be out of here by morning... and we're going to FIND that pipe that we fell out of and get home before anything else happens to us. To tell you the truth, this place gives me the creeps..."  
  
"And you're telling me I'M afraid of the dark?"  
  
"You know what I mean. G'night."  
  
Both buried themselves in their beds. There was a brief pause before Mario sat up again.  
  
"Eh, Weegi."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You hear something?"  
  
"That high-pitched whine coming from upstairs?"  
  
Mario blinked. "...well.. uh, yeah, except it's a bit louder."  
  
Luigi fluffed his pillow again before collapsing. "...I can't hear it... maybe we just really need some sle-" he was suddenly blinded as he was blasted in the face by a flashlight. "H-hey! What's the big idea, we're trying t-"  
  
"Luigi." Mario grit his teeth.  
  
In front of them stood four armored Troopas.  
  
Luigi glanced through the squad and back again before heaving a sigh. He rolled over, grabbing his trusty pipe wrench from under the covers. As Mario raised both his hands from under the covers, a loud clang could be heard as a half-dressed Luigi fell from his bunk, giving a Troopa a painfully-vibrating helmet. Another rushed at him, causing Luigi to do the first thing he could think of - he wound up and tried to kick the turtle in the groin, the hard shell not particularly helping any - but the position of his leg did manage to trip it up and cause it to hurtle itself into a pile of crates. As another approached him from behind, raising his heavy light to bash Luigi, Mario jammed his spanner into the arm joint, causing it to seize up as the Troopa tried to bring his arm back down. Mario simply planted his boot firmly on the side of the shell, shoving him into the same heap of boxes. Luigi was able to strike a unspectactular blow to the remaining Troopa's head with the same wrench, heaving him into the pile as he began to lose consciousness.  
  
"If I didn't know any better, that was a bit more than a hate crime." Mario spat. "Something's going on here."  
  
Luigi had already leapt into his suspenders. "I hear you, bro."  
  
Again, a faint whine came whistling through the otherwise vacant warehouse. As they stood still, trying to analyze it, they soon found it to be far too organic for their liking.  
  
They both exchanged pale glances. "Peach."  
  
As the both dashed for the exit, Luigi couldn't help notice what looked like a giant key sticking out of a box of antiques, glistening in his direction.  
  
********  
  
Troy walked up to the pipe hanging from the celing, tapping it twice with the keyblade. "...this the place you're looking for?"  
  
"I can still sense the Vast on the air... and it is certain." Sirius hunched down, drawing a talon through the dirt. "Many koopas have passed through this corridor. We must be headed in the right direction."  
  
Troy frowned as he stared on. Undoubtedly they were getting closer to the Mushroom Kingdom - the caverns were steadily becoming more alive, a stark contrast from the labrynthine tunnels underneath Dark Land. The lichens and plant life in this area was denser than anywhere Troy had been in the pipe catacombs - which may had also been the result of them getting closer to the surface as well, but it was easy to take Sirius' assumption for granted.  
  
"...Sirius... I'm just getting a tad bit curious..."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"You're certain that the Vast or whatnot are headed here, but what exactly are we going to do if we confront them?"  
  
"It's not so much as what WE'RE doing, as what YOU'RE doing."  
  
Troy went deadpan. "What's THAT supposed to mean."  
  
"I told you, the Keyblades are the only things capable of banishing the Vast. I can assist you in fending off the Koopa Troop but it is you who must exorcise the Vast from any who are infected. Exactly what degree to which the Troop is corrupt, I don't know. But it may be safe to assume that their leader may be the deepest."  
  
Troy shook his head frantically. "...wait, wait, wait... so Bowser's probably at the heart of this?" he took a deep breath. "...Sirius, what exactly HOW do you exorcise Vast with a Keyblade?"  
  
"Use it as a weapon. Do not worry, in its current state the Keyblade cannot inflict actual physical harm - it will only do that if you will it to. If you attack Bowser with it, it will merely pass through him - eliminating any Vast in its path. The subject will still feel quite a bit of pain, an unfortunate side effect of the purging process, but it is for his own good."  
  
Troy's heart stopped. "You're insisting that I FIGHT King Bowser?!" Troy gaped, grimacing. "Are you insane?! He's massive! He could take down a tractor trailer with his bare hands! He's got enough armor plating to stop a meteor! There's NO way I'm just going to rush in and just wail on him! Unlike SOME people around here, I VALUE MY LIFE!"  
  
"For the last time, Troy, think outside the box for a moment." Sirius growled. Troy immediately froze. "You hold in your hands an ancient weapon of inconceivable power. I'm not saying defeating Bowser will be easy at the moment, but with a Keyblade in your possession it is very much possible. The more you're set on doing this, the easier the going is going to be. Do you understand?"  
  
"I'm getting the assumption I'm going to HAVE to." Troy leapt up, grabbing onto the inside lip of the pipe, pulling himself up. Quickly the inner suction took hold, shooting Troy up through the pipe system. Sirius followed closely behind.  
  
********  
  
The Koopa camp, meanwhile, was now in a full uproar over the death of Kare - very much more a gruesome act than many of the soldiers there were used to seeing. Preperation for the attack had sped up tenfold, lest anyone get on the bad side of Bowser once again. Even then, at least three battalions had fled the scene. Bowser himself briefly contemplated hunting them down and destroying every last person himself, but soon found himself far away from the camp in the other direction - marching on Toad Town by his lonesome. Two battalions of Troopas lagged a safe distance behind, hoping to console their obviously-distorted king, but still did so timidly. One brave Troopa was up ahead of Bowser, leading the group through the night with a lantern.  
  
"...erm... King Bowser..." he tugged nervously at his collar. "...no offense or anything, but didn't you send Morton and Wendy to nab their princess? Shouldn't we wait until they get back before launching a-" he suddenly paused, slowing down to turn to Bowser. "...uh..."  
  
The massive king of the Koopas was slumping along at a snail's pace, his face darkened and turned to the ground. His fists were clenched painfully, the black liquid beginning to lapse out at regular intervals and splatter against the dirt. Looking behind further, the two battalions were split, keeping a safe distance from its trail. "...grrrhaahhahhhh... you can just.. forgettt... about them." he ended his statement with a hiss that sent a chill through the crowd. "...we've got more important thingsss.. to do right now."  
  
The lead Troopa was visibly confused. "Like?"  
  
"CONQUER!!!" Bowser bellowed, afterwards letting out a high-pitched scream very uncharacteristic of his build. His form slumped over, slamming both his fists into the ground. One battalion stumbled as the tremor washed over them. The other was already fleeing into the hills. The guide shielded himself, slowly raising a dismayed glance to the shattered King. He breathed in ragged gasps, now beginning to drool almost savagely. He stared back at the guide, flashing a grin not like his trademark, but a hideous, twisted grimace.  
  
"...erm..." the guide sweatdropped. "...let's... get moving.. I guess."  
  
"Well said." Bowser snarled, stomping ahead of the lone Troopa.  
  
Off in the distance, over a hill, Sirius tore Troy from the other end of the pipe with one hand, sending him flying into the shrubbery nearby. He quickly stood up, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. "...if you'd just GIVE me a minute, maybe I WOULD get out of the pipe!"  
  
"If you might stand up and look around, you'll see that we don't exactly have all the time in the world." Troy began to jog as he followed Sirius up the hill. He stood high upon it, staring abroad at the two battalions of Troopas, one at least a 100 paces behind Bowser, and the other 500 paces behind them - and rapidly losing ground. Sirius pointed towards the front, where the hulking koopa could be seen leading the march. "There. Is that this Bowser you speak of?"  
  
Troy squinted. "That'd be him, alright. Why?"  
  
"Can't you sense it in the least?" Sirius stared with slit eyes. Troy continued to look abroad before turning back to Sirius.  
  
"Sense what?"  
  
"The Vast. Come now, can't you recognize the slightest change in his appearance?"  
  
Troy peered out again, shielding his eyes from the rain. "I don't know, I can't make out much from this distance."  
  
"Maybe you'd like to get a bit closer?" Sirius suggested. He turned to a suddenly silent Troy. "Thought so. Anyways... now, where did you say he was headed?"  
  
"He's on a march to the Mushroom Kingdom. I'm kind of surprised the Koopa Troop isn't swarming together. After being trained to do that, and everything." he panned across the horizon again, where he could see another five giant clusters of Troopas huddled together as they kept an even more liberal distance behind the second battalion. "Well, what next, fearless leader?" Troy said breathlessly.  
  
"I don't know. I wasn't predicting your 'Koopa Troop' to be this large. No matter. I'm sure Bowser has other things on his mind right now - I'm presuming the best time to make our stand would be wherever his destination is. Do you have any idea where his first stop would be in the Mushroom Kingdom?"  
  
"Now, I've only been to the Mushroom Kingdom a few times... but from the looks of the paths where we are there should be a large settlement nearby. I guess it would make sense for Bowser to strike right at the heart of the Mushroom Kingdom, the capital, Toad Town."  
  
"How far is that?"  
  
"Do I look like a walking talking GPS to you?" Troy muttered. "The best we can do at this point is just continue on through the pipe catacombs and get to Toad Town that way. From what I understand, sometimes traders use the tunnels to get out of the city when the roads above get too packed. But I can't verify that."  
  
"I think that's the most intelligent thing you've said all day." Sirius sighed, climbing back into the pipe. Troy stood outside, letting the keyblade bob on his shoulder.  
  
"...yeah." Troy sighed. "It probably was."  
  
********  
  
NSX  
  
2: One Flew Over the Koopa's Nest  
  
********  
  
The door leading to the main lobby of the castle, oddly enough, was locked. With a loud thud it buckled, again, and then one more time before the cheap Koopa-crafted seal on it burst. Mario and Luigi charged in, leaping to a halt as they reached the sun-patterned floor near the center. They both kept watchful eyes about them, taking special care to stay on each others' backs in the case that there were far more many Koopas - a safe assumption if they had managed to get in the castle, even with the lax watch kept by the small fragment of the National Guard out front.  
  
They both froze as the main doors opened - right on cue as a blast of thunder tore through the room. The rain outside was pounding harder than before, and it showed. The tied and gagged Peach standing in front of them was now just a wet mess, and the two stumpier Koopas flanking her didn't appear much more amused. One's skin and shell were a cracked, dark tan brown, and the other was draped in a pink shell, far too much makeup to be healthy and a magneta shell. She wore a comically large polka-dotted bow on top of her head.  
  
"I thought we were done here." Wendy pouted.  
  
"Your stupid escort's busy elsewhere." Morton grunted, facing the other way. His large, clawed foot tapped impatiently against the expensive rug that took up the majority of the area directly in front of the main doors. "...does his mouth ever empty? I mean, c'mon..."  
  
Both plumbers glanced over as another Sledge waddled out from a side door, dragging a sack as large as him in his wake. "..uhh, wow! Rations for me whenever I want..." he picked it up, slinging it over his shoulder. "Dur... we done here?"  
  
"Look around, genius." Wendy let herself slouch.  
  
"What's going on here?" Mario suddenly stepped forward. "Where's Peach?"  
  
"I believe that's confidential information regarding our kingdom, if I'm not terribly mistaken..." Wendy did the same. "...and also if I'm not mistaken your best action would be to back your little BEHINDS UP!" she grimaced as both lunged at her, Luigi lagging behind. She slung her arm forward, catching the peppermint candy ring that hung around it loosely. As Mario homed in on her she got a clean throw, the confectionary exploding violently as it hit its target. Mario was hurled backwards against the wall and Luigi's charge was halted - in the meanwhile all three koopas turned, darting out of the castle's foyer.  
  
"...man!" Luigi was already at the back of the lobby, helping Mario up. "...you alright there? That stuff packs a punch..."  
  
"Now that's... sour candy." Mario continued to dust himself off, righting his cap. "...well.. I guess that's not going to stop us.. either that or it wasn't meant to... either way we gotta get to the bottom of this..."  
  
"I guess there's no real way to avoid it now..." Luigi picked up a box of soda crackers off the floor. Looking ahead he saw several more random articles of food spread on a path to the entrance. Throwing the double doors open he was hit in the face with the raging winds outside, the storm having now become just shy of a hurricane. Still, however, he could make out the steady trail of foodstuffs leading down the palace path and along the Toad Town streets beyond.  
  
"You two!" Toad burst through the hall door behind them, making amusingly large strides.  
  
"He did it." Mario and Luigi pointed at each other.  
  
"I'm not stupid... I know what's happening here..." Toad removed his cap, wringing it stressfully. "...I never thought something like this would happen.. I mean, what reason does the Koopa kingdom have to attack us?.. I mean, asides from our endless riches, but... you know, we just started talks with them such a short time ago... how did they get such a trained attack force in that time... this doesn't add up... ay yi yi..."  
  
"Listen, we'll take care of the princess. You just try to keep everyone around here on their toes, right?" Mario slung his weapon over his shoulder.  
  
Toad began to pace. "Right, right... lessee... I'll try to get a hold of Wooster and Toadsworth and the other retainers... yeah, that'll work, and the duty guards.. no, not the duty guards, that'll give things away for sure... the king? Definately not the king..."  
  
"What's the deal?" Luigi muttered. "I think the bigwigs here should be in the know, especially if their princess' missing."  
  
"You don't understand," Toad blurted. "I've tried so hard to help her with her duties appointed to her by the king, and I'd love more than anything else to see her succeed and get her hands on a prominent position in palace affairs, just to prepare her for her future leadership and to just give her some prestige to work with, you know what I mean, if the king knew what was going on here that'd all be gone, bang, zippo, destroyed, you know what I mean, I MEAN, he's got faith in her but I can't let that be taken aw-"  
  
"OKAY, okay, we get the point." Mario grumbled.  
  
"Bro? You sure about this?"  
  
"Positive, those koopa creeps haven't been too much of a pain..."  
  
Toad tensed up. "Yes, yes! That'd be great, great great! Thank you thank you! Here, take these..." he lifted up his cap, taking out a bouquet of flowers. Mario hesitantly took them, wincing as he felt a burning heat shoot through his hand. Not knowing what else to do he passed them off to Luigi, also letting out a yelp and tossing them around for a bit before letting them fall to the floor.  
  
"What was THAT for?!" both brothers were now furiously blowing on their hands.  
  
"Oh, that's one of the Mushroom Kingdom's bumper crops, the hephastus flora, or as the market likes to call them, fire flowers. Pretty spiffy, they give off a magical charge that enables anyone who comes in contact with them the ability to conjure up heat whenever they want to, for destructive purposes or personal heat or-"  
  
"OKAY, OKAY." Mario clenched his fists, letting them loosen again. Luigi did the same. "...now.. how do you work th-" He glanced around. The hall door shut with a slam again.  
  
"...ah, guess it can't be that hard." Luigi sighed. "...well, guess we'd better split..."  
  
"Now, hold it right there, you two..." another beige retainer waddled into view rapidly. Luigi rolled his eyes. "I understand the urgency of our situation, but should we not worry about getting the rest of the royal family to safety? And what of the citizens? Where is that blasted Guard when we need it?" Toadsworth continued to fume. Toad blocked it out to the best of his ability.  
  
"Well, that's a good question..." Toad scratched his head, trying his hardest to dodge the comment. "Well, at this point we should see what Mario and Luigi want to-" he froze, whirling back to the door and finding no one there. "...well, crud."  
  
********  
  
A solid twenty minutes had passed, as Mario and Luigi still fought through the storm in their pursuit of the princess. Or, more technically, the raider of the royal pantry. The city streets were a dark labyrinth, only made worse by the beating rain and the relentless wind. The trail of consumables continued to wind through the streets - but gaps were beginning to appear, both in front and behind them.  
  
"We've got more pressing matters here!" Mario huffed, trying not to waste any more breath.  
  
Luigi jogged along behind him, a sack of his own filled with various canned pastas. "Waste not, want not."  
  
Mario frowned, beginning to slow down as the trail reached an end. Him and his brother stood in the middle of an intersection. Still, the edge of the city could be seen, but that still didn't help matters any.  
  
"This is bad." Mario sighed.  
  
"Wouldn't they be headed for the city limits?"  
  
"That's what they want you to think." Mario turned, raising a finger matter-of-factly - and just about poking Luigi in the eye. "...they could've taken any other route, even if it would be slower it would throw us off."  
  
"There's gotta be other Koopa 'round here!" Luigi growled. "We gotta find one of them..."  
  
A short ways off, at the edge of the street, a manhole slid off its supports. With a cough, Troy stuck his head out, slinging his hands out over the cobblestone road to get a better grip. With a grunt he quickly hoisted himself out of the sewers, seemingly unaware of the smell that rose from the pit. He was about to walk away before he heard Sirius clear his throat. Chuckling, he stared back down into the hole in the road, scratching his head. "...well, I guess I never thought of that before, did I..."  
  
"I'm just a tad bit confused how I'm going to get through a hole that small." Sirius droned.  
  
"...maybe you can find a bigger one further along?" Troy blurted.  
  
He was suddenly hurled backwards as a large section of the street exploded from underneath him, Sirius rocketing up through the granite. Troy landed with a roll as Sirius came back down, his massive feet hitting the ground with a crash. He flexed his talons as he remained hunched, slowly returning to his normal posture. Troy sat back up, coughing out a mouthful of dust as the two brothers whirled around to find the street behind them in ruins.  
  
Sirius glanced behind him. "That should be big enough."  
  
Troy muttered to himself as he stood up, only to grabbed by the collar of his shell and pressed against someone else.  
  
"You've got some talking to do." Mario growled.  
  
"...wha?" Troy squeaked.  
  
"Don't play dumb with me... now, where's the princess headed?"  
  
"Uh, wha?" Troy slurred.  
  
"Release him. He means no harm." Sirius rumbled. His eyes pulsed with energy.  
  
Luigi trembled before Sirius, almost another half as tall as him. "...eh, this guy isn't a koopa..."  
  
"...oh?" Mario tossed Troy to the side, taking another step forward. "...and what race are YOU? Don't tell me you're in with the Koopas on this..."  
  
Sirius' expression suddenly twisted again - this time into one of utter confusion. "...well..." he tried his hardest to dig into his host's mind, but still could find no trace of knowledge on the subject. "...I.. uh, I'm not a koopa..."  
  
"Just hurry up and choose!" Troy spat.  
  
Another barrier in Sirius' mind snapped. Another field of memory began to open itself to him with the word having some familiarity to him beyond normal use. "...choose... I.. for your information, I am a Chozo. And this... koopa has no pact against you. I need you to direct us to the government of this city-"  
  
"Uh, no." Mario said flatly.  
  
Troy leapt back onto his feet, flailing his limbs. "You IDIOT! Just listen to me for a moment! I'm not with the Koopas! We've come to deliver an urgent message to your king or whatever... I'm guessing you've already had an unpleasant run-in with the Koopa Troop, but that's the least of it! An entire freaking seven brigades are on their way to pillage Toad Town as we speak, with the king of the Koopas, Bowser leading them! This place is gonna become a warzone in a while and you all have to get out of here!"  
  
"Well, no offense or anything..." Luigi said meekly, still keeping a steady eye on Sirius. "...but what real motive do we have to listen to you?"  
  
Troy swung out his keyblade, pointing it forward. "...because if you don't, it's just about certain this place is gonna be overrun by the Va-" Sirius stabbed a hand at Troy, causing him to hop back, silenced.  
  
"Shall we get going?" Sirius said firmly, clenching his fists.  
  
Troy dropped the keyblade back on his shoulder, heading to the front of the group - and was promptly thrown back on his feet as the ground rumbled beneath him. Sirius remained unfazed while the other two stumbled.  
  
"NOW what..." Troy hacked.  
  
Everyone looked forward to the main gates of the city far down the street. With another blast the huge doors were blown off their hinges, tossed to the road with another deafening crash. Troy grimaced, looking up as a squad of Troopas swarmed in, unveiling their weapons as they advanced. They suddenly paused, parting as Bowser slumped to the front. At that point Troy could start to notice what Sirius had earlier - that Bowser had definately devolved since his last encounter. Bowser continued to advance, stepping haphazardly as a visible trail of drool hovered from his lips. He laughed, his pupil-less eyes piercing into everyone present. Troy squeaked, pedaling himself backwards across the ground as fast as his arms could take him. Eventually he bumped into Sirius.  
  
"This is the king of the Koopas. As you might notice, he's not particularly himself." Sirius turned to Luigi. "He has been affected by a sickness that has warped his mind. It is imperative that we immobilize him as quickly as possible before he causes any more harm to himself and others."  
  
Two Hammers stepped forward, sharing much the same expression. They both let out feral hisses as they hunched forward, snaking towards the group.  
  
Sirius' eyes narrowed. "So it has spread."  
  
All four shuffled backwards, with Troy in front as he himself hunched down, gripping the keyblade tightly. "...oh, c'mon... GUYS! It's me... a fellow Troopa! Just calm down for a minute..."  
  
Their expressions froze, returning to their normal stares. Troy breathed a sigh of relief before they started moving forward again. "...it's the defector."  
  
"...wha?!" Troy tensed up as they both charged at him, swinging their blades. In a flash Sirius leapt forward, catching both weapons with his bare hands, throwing both Troopas clean over his shoulders. "...Sirius?!"  
  
"Troy, we'll try to keep the brigade busy. You focus on Bowser."  
  
"'kay, I'l-" he suddenly shook his head, staring at the group as they charged around to the Troop's flanks. "W-wha?!" He glanced around, and eventually over his shoulder - where he saw a small group of the Guard walking by, their eyes widening in disbelief as they saw and eventually figured out what was going on. The mushroom peoples' faces grew sour as they readied their weapons, charging forth and providing backup to both groups. Mario and Luigi took the left, and with another two dozen troops were held off the advancing Troopas fairly well - on the other the Troopas were doing everything BUT fighting, trying for their dear lives to get out of the way of the rampaging Sirius - who was, in fact, purposely not even landing blows in the event he DID end up doing something tragic with his inhuman strength.  
  
In the middle was Bowser, slowly beginning to step towards Troy as what remained of the huge Koopa's awareness began to drift away. He let out a hiss as he continued to lumber forward. Troy could only stumble back, keeping his keyblade held awkwardly in front of him. Bowser's expression twisted, looking down at the miniscule Troopa hungrily.  
  
"...KEY??" Bowser slurred.  
  
"...it's a key! And I'm going to beat you senseless with it!" Troy was backpedaling faster now, his pep talk having little relevance in the shadow of the behemoth Koopa.  
  
"YOU ARE NOT WITH USSSS!!" Bowser reeled back, suddenly beginning a mad charge forward. Troy let out a screech as he dove to the side, barely escaping Bowser as he slashed forward with one of his claws. His paw slammed down against the street, shattering the cobblestone beneath it as Troy leapt back to his feet.  
  
"...Bowser! It's me, that little delinquent that spoiled your entire invasion plans! Don't you remember me?!" Troy yelled at his infuriated king. Not even that seemed to have any effect. Instead, he cast his hands forward, letting his dark sludge ooze out of his hands and onto the road. Troy stared on, beginning to shiver as the sludge reformed itself, turning into two lanky figures. A pair of beady white eyes and antenna popped out of each head, locking onto Troy and charging. "...well.. alright... Troy, these are two guys about your size... this shouldn't be a challenge.. just use the key like you're told... just this once..." he closed his eyes, hunching down as the two shadows darted towards him.  
  
He grit his teeth, leaping forth as he swung the key into the shadow on his left. His eyes widened as the device cleaved straight through the ooze, completely dividing it down the waste. It quickly began to lose substance, dissiapating into the air. Troy gaped, but not before whirling around and slashing through its partner with one smooth stroke. Ooze was randomly sprinkled on the street from the heavy blow, dissolving into nothing. Troy blinked, lifting up the key. "...that.. THAT WAS.. AWESOME! WOO!" he swung the key around for a moment, letting it fall back in his hands. He glared back at Bowser, gritting his teeth. "...if this cuts down the Vast so easily..."  
  
"..KEY!!!" Bowser roared.  
  
"I GOT YOUR KEY RIGHT HERE!!" Troy leapt off his feet, swinging the keyblade above his head as he made a full-out charge at Bowser. He vaulted upwards, falling at Bowser's head as he swung back to deliver a blow. He was promptly greeted by Bowser's claw.  
  
Sirius watched painfully as Troy crashed through the wall of an adjacent shop, causing the entire wall to collapse. "...oh dear..."  
  
A green shell rolled out of the debris, slowly wobbling to a stop before Troy popped out again. "...um, ow. But... you know, that still didn't hurt as much as I thought it w-" he looked up to see Bowser's foot coming down on him. "Crap." The keyblade hit the ground as he let out a squeak, shielding himself as Bowser thrust down.  
  
**  
  
You still have time.  
  
**  
  
Troy blinked. "...whuzzah?" he glanced down to find the keyblade back in his hand - but that still wasn't the greatest of his concerns.  
  
Bowser's massive, clawed foot hung in the air inches from him, but was still approaching him - very, very, very slowly.  
  
**  
  
You, are the Keyper of CHRONICLE.  
  
In the face of adversity you will learn to use these powers; fueled from within:  
  
For the heart always stands defiant, even against something as indestructible as time...  
  
**  
  
Troy took a deep breath, glancing over. The rain continued to plummet around him in normal time - but Bowser continued his slow-motion descent. He squinted as another blast of lightning filled the sky. Off in the distance, beyond the melee that was occuring by the gates, he could see a tall figure standing in the rain, draped in a long black raincoat. "...wha? Who..."  
  
**  
  
Whether the heart is correct or not...  
  
Is a different matter entirely.  
  
**  
  
Troy was blinded by another flash. "Wait! Who are-" he stared out into the storm once again. Everyone still crowded around the gate - but no one stood within. Suddenly reminded of his current situation, he tightened his right hand around his weapon. "...grr, I'll worry about it later... now, the keyblade can cleanse, and cause pain in the meanwhile... let's hope this works... hyaa!!" Troy suddenly lunged back upwards, kneeling forward as he drove the end of the keyblade into Bowser's near-stationary foot with every ounce of strength he could muster.  
  
With that, time suddenly snapped back to normal - Bowser's eyes widened as he reeled back, roaring in pain as his still-functional foot began to burn from within. He wobbed, his yell raising in pitch as he leant away from Troy. Troy leapt up, moving himself away as fast as his legs could take him. He spun around to face Bowser again - in time to see him lose what balance he had left, toppling over facefirst onto the road with a tremendous crash. This caught the attention of the others, who were busy dusting off the remaining Troopas that hadn't fled with some assortment of bruises. Troy continued to stare at Bowser's limb - the dark substance that Bowser had previously summoned now spurted out recklessly onto the street, neutralizing on contact.  
  
"NOW!!" Sirius yelled. "He's stunned!! Attack!"  
  
Troy nodded, running along an arc towards Bowser's back as he slowly began to push himself back up. Before he could, however, Troy leapt onto the back of his shell, darting up it - he leapt, stomping down hard on his head. The impact stunned him again, sending him back to the road.  
  
Troy's grin beamed with triumph as he pointed the keyblade downwards. "G'night." he leapt back towards Bowser's shell, kicking off of it and dropping down again on his head - driving the keyblade straight through it. He grit his teeth, wincing as the darkness now viciously exploded out of the imaginary gap - Bowser convulsed below Troy, but he continued to hold on as the dark spray continued to fizz into the air, disappearing. As the stream ceased, Troy withdrew the keyblade, leaving behind no evidence it had ever been there. Bower's head suddenly jerked up again, letting out a dull groan before falling back to the ground, its host finally unconscious.  
  
Sirius waited a moment before returning to his normal posture. "...well... whew. Finally, the Vast is out of commission... at least for the time be-"  
  
Troy was still on top of Bowser, pelvic-thrusting every few moments. "OWNED! OWNED! OWNED!"  
  
For the first time that night, the storm began to weaken.  
  
********  
  
A very long discussion with the Koopa Troop ensued. Some were still a bit confused, but while the problem of Kare had been shoved under the carpet so to speak, and Bowser himself was ready to own up to the chaos he had caused, a deal was quickly struck that all palace officials that had any indication as to what the Koopa Troop were actually doing there would keep their lips zipped, only referring to the sudden insurgence of Koopas as reinforcements to help construct the shelters that the National Guard was busy trying to throw up on their own.  
  
Peach was still a bit annoyed about being drug facefirst across the wilderness by the inital shock corp of Troopas, but Mario and Sirius were intent on keeping her pacified in the case another conflict would start.  
  
Of course, throughout all of this the king had still been sleeping and upon being woken by Toad had no idea what the hell had went on.  
  
The next morning, Mario, Luigi, Toad, Toadsworth, the King, Troy and Sirius could all be found around a small dining table in the banquet hall, digging into a light meal. Sirius picked slowly at the single crumb that remained on his plate. Troy continued to shovel at his food. Mario and Luigi did the same. Toad and Toadsworth still had blank stares on their faces.  
  
Last but not least, Bowser could be seen sitting uncomfortably at the far end. "...WHY do all you guys have STUBBY legs..." he fidgeted, shifting his legs - in the process lifting the table up a foot at his end, causing Toadsworth's full plate to slide off the table with a crash.  
  
"'ey, Sirius..." Troy mumbled between bites, spewing crumbs back onto his plate. "What's the holdup?"  
  
Sirius' giant hand held the miniscule fork, continuing to poke at his empty plate. "Blast... why did I have to pick a body with such grueling physical demands... can we get fifths?"  
  
Toad bowed. "Remember, we're in YOUR debt."  
  
"Say, what are we all doing here anyways?" Luigi blurted. "I thought we cleared that whole imminent-war deal up..."  
  
"We're finalizing the oil deal." the King mumbled.  
  
"Again?" Troy said.   
  
Bowser shot him an annoyed glance. "Actually, I recall bein' the one who suggested coming back here..." he shoved off, falling back on his bulky frame as he stood. At the far end of the hall the doors opened, Peach entering the room in her ceremonial dress. "...well, look who stopped in..."  
  
Peach never said anything, instead heading straight for the table. She took a seat next to Troy, who's eyes immediately locked onto her. She drummed her hands on the table before pausing, noticing the Troopa looking over her. Troy glanced up at her face, twitching upon realizing he was being watched. "..oh, uh, hey, I mean hi... I mean..." he knew what she was implying. "I mean, that's a really nice wristband you have..."  
  
The band itself was rather plain but had a series of tiny diamonds atop her wrist. "I.. got it for my 16th birthday." she glanced back to Troy, who was still trying to hide his blatant blush. A Troopa, yes, but not a particularly bad one. Especially if what she heard was true and that he DID manage to stop Bowser singlehandedly. "...how old are you, anyways?"  
  
"...fou-uh, fifteen. Gee... how did I manage THAT...?" Troy scratched the back of the back of his head while Toad chuckled to himself.  
  
The King stood, rubbing his hands together. "Alrighty. Looks like everyone's here. Now, Bowser, was there something you wanted to tell me?"  
  
"I apologize on behalf of the Koopa Troop for the events of last night and everything." he moved, slowly beginning to pace. "...which brings me to my point... before we talk more about the oil, I've been a little concerned about what happened last night..."  
  
Peach was visibly stunned. "...well, this isn't Bowser."  
  
"...Sirius here tells me that I'd caught a little bug that had caused me to go berserk on your kingdom... I don't seem to recall much if anything that actually happened last night, but whatever it was, there's only one thing on my mind right now... I want to make sure that it ain't contagious, and if it is, have some way to contain it on standby."  
  
"Oh?" Peach folded her arms. "...from eyewitness accounts we believe there was something wrong with you, no doubt... the Dynasty is willing to forgive you on those accounts, but how exactly do you intend to fight it?"  
  
Troy was almost knocked clean out of his chair as Bowser's arm was slung around his shoulder. "Take a look at this fine Troopa here. He risked his life to find a way to the Mushroom Kingdom to warn you of the imminent siege by the Koopa Troop. Now, I do seem to recall a few moments before losing consciousness last night... and that's the fact that THIS boy holds the key to stopping this infection, literally."  
  
"...wha?" Troy blurted.  
  
"Where's that key you were using the other night? You got it here, don't you?" Bowser shook Troy.  
  
"...yeah, yeah..." he glanced to Sirius, who gave him a dull stare. Seeing no harm in it himself, he ducked underneath the table for a moment, sitting back up and resting the CHRONICLE on the table. Everyone present gasped or otherwise gaped over the odd-looking keyweapon. Troy glanced around, surveying everyone's reactions - Peach stared down on the weapon with the widest eyes of the group. She obviously wanted to say something, but was appearing to hold back her ambition.  
  
"Well, anyways..." the King waved a hand to Troy. "...Troy, I thank you for all that you have done for the Mushroom Kingdom in this past night... know that you as a koopa will always find a home with us."  
  
Troy nodded. "Thanks, your highness." This seemed to irk Bowser a bit.  
  
"Anything to add, Bowser?" Peach interjected.  
  
"Funny you should ask. Seeing as how the weapon that can banish this afflictment rests in the hands of a Troopa..." he twiddled his thumbs. "I think that would entitle us as the Koopa Troop a little incentive to keep such a powerful artifact within reach of our allies."  
  
"What?" Peach slurred  
  
"I'd like a 15% fee hike on our oil shipment."  
  
"Not on your life." Peach said coldly.  
  
"I hate to burst your bubble, King Bowser," Sirius folded his arms as well. "...but what position would you be in right now if Troy WEREN'T part of the Koopa Troop? Correction, what if he already isn't?"  
  
"Sirius?" Troy glanced between the two.  
  
"Is something the matter?" Bowser laughed.  
  
"Just the usual." Peach sighed, leaning forward and resting her chin in her hands.  
  
"This key is not something to be bought and sold." Sirius growled. "It is something that is needed by the whole world. Troy shall keep the keyblade and wield it as he sees fit. You said yourself you're clean, so that gives you no right to try to swindle these people."  
  
"...10%?" Bowser asked weakly.  
  
"5%." Peach seethed.  
  
Bowser shrugged. "Yeah, whatever... alrighty, I guess I'll get the oil shipments headed here in a few days... well, I guess I'd better head off... you all take care, eh?... and Troy..."  
  
"Yessir." Troy stood up straight, hoisting the keyblade over his shoulder.  
  
"You sure you don't want to stay in the Koopa Troop? Plenty of benefits headed your way, especially after a wonderful performance out t-"  
  
"I'm fine." Troy repeated.  
  
Bowser just stared at him for a moment, blinking before a sour frown formed on his face. He grumbled, waving his arms at his two escort Hammers. He turned, lumbering off - the two light infantry marched behind him, keeping in perfect step as they left the banquet hall. Troy watched as the huge doors closed, feeling a great weight taken off his shoulders, and another one slapped down on him in exchange. He slouched, slowly turning back to the remaining attendees. "...well... I wonder where this places me in Mushroom Kingdom politics."  
  
Toad rocked back and forth in his chair. "It'd be nice to see a few more koopas stand up to him, that's for sure."  
  
"Meh..." Luigi leant back in his chair, wrapping his hands around behind his head. "...but you gotta admit... Troy can't be feeling NO remorse at a time like this... I mean, you've seen them... they're Troy's kin and everything."  
  
Troy shook his head. "...nah, I'm alright... I actually lived elsewhere, I joined the Koopa Troop for some quick coinage, actually..." he turned back to the table. "...bashing your cranium against random floating bricks gets tiring after a while."  
  
"Where did you live before?" Peach asked.  
  
"Way, waaaay back in Dark Land... near the beginning of Land's End. I grew up in a small mountain village there... Highborne. I'm starting to wonder how all the folks there are doing now... but I guess it can't be helped right now..." he glanced back at Sirius. "...I'm under the impression I've got more pressing matters."  
  
"And why would you think that?" Sirius asked emotionlessly.  
  
"Because you're still here." Troy stared back, a frown developing on his face.   
  
Peach glanced around the rapidly quieting table, slapping her hands together. "...erm, could I have your attention please... dad.. could you do a quick favor?"  
  
"What'll it be." he leant forward, far more relaxed now that Bowser was no longer actively glaring at him.  
  
"Can you just leave us for a moment? I'd like to have a private word with the others here."  
  
He nodded, rising from his chair. His robes flowed down around him as he smiled warmly to the others. "By all means. Actually, I'm going to go talk to Wooster about getting those new flower beds out front up and running. You all behave now, okay?" his grin spread as he whirled around, marching off. Once again the great doors shut, this time much more quietly. Peach stared in the direction of the door for a moment before turning back to the crowd.  
  
"What would you possibly need to discuss with us without the King's watch?" Toadsworth mumbled.  
  
"Really..." Mario stood up. "...I think we've discussed everything here we need to... now, there's something I'D like to discuss here, and that's how exactly we're going to get ho-" he paused, moving closer to Peach. "...'ey, you still here?" he glanced down to the table and back. Peach still stared at the keyblade lying on the table, her grin widening by the second.  
  
She glanced to Troy, to Sirius, and back again. "...I just can't BELIEVE this! Who would've figured..." she planted her hands back on the table, twitching. "This is INCREDIBLE!! This is just.. just unreal!" she stood up, humming to herself as she pranced around in a circle before leaning over the table.  
  
Sirius raised an eyebrow. Troy blinked.  
  
"...I just can't get over it.. after hearing so much about them... I have a keyblade sitting right in front of me!"  
  
"A wha?" Toad said blankly.  
  
"Key?" Mario slurred.  
  
"Blade?" Luigi gaped.  
  
"Huzzah?" Toadsworth gasped.  
  
Both Troy and Sirius exchanged glances. Troy was just as confused as anyone else - Sirius was downright amazed. "...you... how do you know? How do you know that this is a keyblade?"  
  
Peach nodded, her mind still on too much of a high to say anything correctly off the bat. "...you'll never believe how long I've wanted to see one of these things! Here in the castle we have so many books, so many records of everything that's happened throughout the history of this land, throughout the Mushroom Dynasty and even some texts from before, whenever that was... I've just read so, so much..." she paused for a moment, her smile becoming more solemn. "...I've always put so much attention into reading whatever I could... books of every genre, encyclopedias, whatever knowledge I could get my hands on... I wanted an escape from this kingdom so bad..."  
  
Toad suddenly reeled forward. "Well, geez, why didn't you say so? I'm sure your dad would let you set up an expedition if you really wanted to..." his own face saddened as he saw her sulk.  
  
"What's the point, Toad? Everyone has done those expeditions... and everyone has recorded their knowledge... right here for my convenience. There's no point in any adventuring anymore... because it's just all been done. Even if I were somewhere first hand I'm still living in a shadow of someone else... just having it regurgitated to me... and looking back upon the archives... call me crazy, but I'm beginning to doubt if there is anything left in this world to discover... I've got the eight lands in the palm of my hand, and all the surrounding nations..."  
  
Troy stepped forward. "Land's End."  
  
Luigi opened an eye. "What's Land's End?"  
  
"The edge of the world. Beyond a set point, at least on the very edge of Dark Land, the ground just drops off. A bottomless valley lies beyond. They say that if you head out far enough, all land around you just suddenly ends, and you're left in a bottomless sky with no way of finding your way back to the continent."  
  
Toad shook his head, leaping forward in shock. "Are you CRAZY!? No one's gone beyond Land's End and come back to tell the tale! There's nothing beyond there but death... I know my fair share of those who headed out there, trust me!"  
  
Peach seemed even gloomier than before. "Toad... you're right."  
  
Mario blinked. "He is? But c'mon, there's gotta be something beyond Land's End... unless THIS world's flat, which would be kind of crappy if you asked me."  
  
Peach sighed. "...I know nothing is out there. I was there myself."  
  
Both Toads' eyes bulged out. "WHAT?!"  
  
"Some nights... I've snuck out... hopped aboard one of the miniairships we have... how was I able to control one? Well, it's amazing what the books in this castle'll teach you..." she smiled weakly. "...I headed out into the abyss... and spent the night there... I myself nearly failed to get back to the continent... it was sheer luck that I steered in the right direction after I had become lost in the sky."  
  
"...Peach!" Toad collapsed. "...we could've LOST you out there! What's gotten into you?! When was this? I demand to know..."  
  
"It doesn't matter anymore. Because I've found the undeniable proof that there IS knowledge out there not known by anyone in this world. And I WILL find it before anyone else." she clenched her fists. "The ancient texts I've seen talk about the keyblades, weapons that ultimately serve the purpose of bridging the gap between worlds, no, DIMENSIONS! Just think about it - there could be a zillion other worlds out there that no one here knows about! I'm making it my life mission to get out to those worlds, and leave this world - and return having experienced dozens of others! I couldn't ask for anything more! To tell you the truth... I had something that looked like a keyblade in my basement, but I wasn't sure whether or not it was an actual artifact.. it had no enchantment.. but this just proves it!"  
  
Mario and Luigi both nodded. "Actually... I think I've seen enough to justify that WE'RE in another world."  
  
Peach paused. "...but you said you were from the pipe catacombs!"  
  
Luigi chuckled nervously. "We did. I know for a fact there wasn't a Mushroom Kingdom where we came from... just big 'ol Brooklyn and a mess of pipes that needed unclogging." he looked back up, finding his hands in Peach's.  
  
"What?! Wow, wowwowow! You're telling me.. you're from another WORLD? The world of BROOKLYN?!" she jumped up and down, causing Luigi to flap lifelessly. "THAT IS JUST SO COOL!!"  
  
Troy and Sirius sweatdropped. Troy looked up at Sirius, letting the CHRONICLE tap against the ground. "She's sorta the compulsive type."  
  
Sirius cleared his throat. "Princess Peach, you say that you have documents relating to the keyblades? If these are for real, I wouldn't mind taking a look at them myself. And about that other keyblade... could I examine it as well?"  
  
Peach nodded fervently. "Well, of course, of course..."  
  
"So what are these keyblades, exactly?" Mario stood up, tucking his chair in. "...and what do you mean, they have the power to bridge worlds? Aren't they already bridged? I mean, we got here and everything..."  
  
**  
  
This world has been connected.  
  
**  
  
Troy felt himself go limp. He spun around - finding no one there. He turned again - the table was bare. Not one person was around. He took a step forward - he looked down, finding his boot holding a length of a beige cloak. "...what?! Not again!" he pitched his head up, finding himself staring into the darkness of its hood. "...you're not the same guy..."   
  
**  
  
Tied to the darkness... soon to be completely eclipsed.  
  
**  
  
Troy stumbled back, raising his keyblade. "What do you want? Darkness? What darkness?"  
  
**  
  
There is so very much to learn.  
  
You understand so little.  
  
**  
  
"...I don't... I'll give you that much... but whatever's going on here..." Troy bit his lip. "...I'm going to find out what's attacking my world..."  
  
**  
  
A meaningless effort.  
  
One who understands nothing can know nothing.  
  
**  
  
Troy trembled. Staring up into the dark pit that lied beyond the man's hood, he saw nothing... but fear. On impulse Troy rocketed forward, impaling the man upon the blade - it passed straight through him. Nothing came out. No Vast, no blood, nothing. Troy's eyes widened as he stared upwards. The hood slowly swayed from side to side, the being shaking its head as Troy slowly removed the keyblade. He held it down to his side, his soul cold as he continued to stare into the blackness.  
  
He was still deathly afraid of what was within.  
  
"...may I ask what that was for?" Sirius said, slightly annoyed.  
  
Troy blinked - everyone was back, standing around the table. Sirius stood in front of him. He held up the keyblade again. "...uh.. oh, did I..."  
  
"I know not to give you a sword." Sirius muttered. "What in blazes were you saying, anyways? You've been standing here just RAMBLING to yourself for how long..." Troy chuckled nervously, glancing around. Indeed, everyone including the princess was giving him odd stares.  
  
"...don't.. mind me." Troy sighed. "...I.. haven't slept much, lately... treason is stressful work."  
  
Mario slapped Troy on the shoulder. "...just... don't creep us out, okay?"  
  
Troy nodded. "Gotcha." he raised his hand - to find it empty. "...wha?!"  
  
Peach was already back at the table, holding the CHRONICLE with her hands at both ends. She raised it about her, looking over every inch of it. "...well, these things are spiffy and everything... but how exactly are they able to bridge worlds? Sirius?"  
  
Sirius growled, snatching the keyblade back from Peach. He tossed it back to Troy, who caught it with relative ease. "The keyblade is not leaving this world."  
  
Toad put up his hand. "I second the motion."  
  
"Toad..." Peach scowled.  
  
Sirius looked through the crowd with discontempt. "...I guess it's not worth keeping a secret from you any longer... Peach, I realize that the keyblades may be a means of unlocking other worlds to you, but I have seen from experience, as have you, another purpose of the keyblades - to fight that affliction that you have all obviously seen. The fact of the matter is, that is something foriegn to this world. Yes, it came from another world, now just let me talk. It is an entity called the Vast - it seems to possess a fair amount of sentience, and seeks to do nothing but corrupt those it comes into contact with to create the violence Bowser sought to. The only thing that can stop the Vast are the Keyblades. We may have cleansed Bowser, but there is nothing saying that the Vast that came to this world have been completely eradicated. Do not make the assumption that nothing but good comes from other worlds."  
  
Peach fidgeted. "...well, that I understand... but, what about that other key? What if that were a keyblade, could it be possible to leave that behind in someone else's care? I'm sure with that kind of power they could defend our kingdom easily... I mean, you say Troy has little experience with his, and he managed to take down Bowser..."  
  
"Safety in numbers." Sirius said.  
  
Troy sighed. "You keep saying you want to do something about the Vast... but you're not organized in the least."  
  
"Battling an intersteallar plague isn't exactly the easiest thing." Sirius said coldly.  
  
"...but if the Vast just jumped to this world like that..." Peach frowned. "What's there stopping them from moving to another one?"  
  
Sirius bowed his head. "What makes you think we have the kind of resources to fight the Vast on an infinite number of fronts?"  
  
"EVERYONE, EVERYONE!" Troy budged into the center of the group, holding them all apart. "...just.. everyone calm down for a minute! Alright... Sirius, you tell us that we don't have the resources to fight the Vast on more than one front... but we have a keyblade, and we may have another one... how many keyblades ARE there among the worlds? Wouldn't it be possible to rally a battalion of Keypers to manage the worlds?"  
  
There was a long pause. Troy looked back and forth between everyone present, waiting for a reply.  
  
"...Troy..." Sirius said sadly. "...if it were that easy, the Vast would have been destroyed long ago. There is more you all need to know about the keyblades... and the Keypers..."  
  
********  
  
Initially the keyblades were placed amongst worlds, no one knows who created them or what their initial purpose was... all I know is that as the Vast have pillaged galaxy after universe, and the only physical weapon that has worked consistantly against the physical manifestation of the Vast has been the Keyblades. With each new world, beings throughout time are appointed as Keypers, those who can effectively use the Keyblades and the powers that lie dormant within them. In theory, there are an infinite number of keyblades, Keypers, and worlds for them both to manifest on respectively. Troy, and all of you, you have made the common and often lethal assumption that all Keypers are valiant warriors ready to sacrifice their lives to the Vast to keep it at bay.  
  
This could not be farther from the truth. I've seen people of every build, age, race and walk of life take up the Keyblades - sometimes for more valiant means, and sometimes to further themselves. People have destroyed worlds using them, others have saved them, some rape and pillage civilizations with their aid, others make divine contributions to society, you get the picture. Not everyone sees the keyblades as what they are - some wish to merely exploit them. If they must destroy other Keypers; their only match in power, to accomplish their goals, so be it.  
  
I personally feared for the safety of your world when Troy took up the keyblade calling itself CHRONICLE. He was a mere boy, dysfunctionally educated in the operatings of the Koopa Troop, and a tad bit dense on the side... he could just as easily enslave the CHRONICLE and implement all his childish fantasies with its power under his control... but, in the end, he stood up in the face of responsibility and wielded the keyblade against the Vast - thus, saving this world from its wrath. He is a rare example of heroism in these times.  
  
Add to the fact that the Keypers are stranded among all these infinite worlds and you begin to see the difficulty in rounding them up for a campaign against the Vast.  
  
********  
  
"You see, there may be others just discovering the keyblades as you are... but not all will put them to the productive use that you will... Troy, by taking up a keyblade against the Vast, has not only subjected himself to their harassment, but potentially to the delinquent Keypers of other worlds."  
  
Troy sighed nervously. "...well, isn't that grand."  
  
"...so, a good plan to start with would be to find the keyblades of the Mushroom Kingdom and unite them under one banner, right?" Luigi asked.  
  
"That would be the best option, if forming a proper defense for this world is your priority. I suppose it would be best to fortify this world, it will also give us better footing to advance unto other worlds, if we decide to go that far."  
  
Troy smirked. "Well, then that's settled."  
  
The King bowed. "That it is."  
  
Peach twitched. "...dad?! When did you get back in here?"  
  
He raised his head, his usual smile on. "...people like to call me just another dense politician... but from what I've heard we've got quite a situation on our hands, don't we? If the Vast return it could prove catastrophic for our kingdom... but even with Troy on our side the Vast has its work cut out for it. If there are more keyblades in this world, we WILL find them. Mario, Luigi, Sirius, Troy, and... Toadstool, I will provide whatever assistance you require to make this world into an anti-Vast bastion." he nodded. "Toad, Toadsworth, I trust you will put your hand into this?"  
  
"I'm guessing I don't got much of a choice." Toad sighed. He nodded to Toadsworth. "We'll have to get the other retainers on this. Well... we'd best get cracking."  
  
Mario sighed, leaning back again. "Methinks we're not headed home anytime soon."  
  
Luigi cracked his knuckles, bounding out of his chair. "...methinks I don't got a problem with that."  
  
Troy laughed, resting on the CHRONICLE. He exchanged grins with the others (a wink with Peach, with a particularly confused look in return), and a nod with Sirius. He could sense some gratification coming from Sirius - for the first time in.. well, a while, it appeared that a world was in the beginnings of standing up against the Vast.  
  
A great movement had begun...  
  
********  
  
In the sky, a star died.  
  
Along with it, a world.  
  
The Keypers fled.  
  
A storm of green bolts filled the solar sky as people began to shoot off randomly to other worlds.  
  
Some sought sanctuary.  
  
Others sought power.  
  
Others sought blood.  
  
********  
  
TO BE CONTINUED  
  
NSX: Ntropy  
  
Chapter 3 - A Bridge Too Many 


	3. A Bridge Too Many

(A/N - Taking a look at some of the KH-ish game crossovers lately I notice there's a lot of characters named Sirius O.o' I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes here, I just thought of it as a semi-Dark Cloud reference...)  
  
Troy's boot pressed firmly into the ground.  
  
The sensation sort of surprised him. The fields that he walked through were more vibrant than any he had seen in the vincinity of Toad Town - it was close to two hours since he had left that morning, and already he was out in the clean, clear wilds east of the dense metropolis - farther away from home and further into the depths of the Mushroom Kingdom than he had ever been in his life. A gentle breeze crawled along the green hills, causing waves of viridian to ripple across the ground as the tall grass followed the current. He walked along with a hop in his step, the CHRONICLE in its normal position over his shoulder. As he reached a dip in the ground, he turned back to the crest behind him, watching as Mario jogged over it.  
  
"Hey!" Troy laughed, waving his free arm. "Do we still got a schedule to keep?"  
  
"I'm comin', I'm comin..." Mario darted down the hill, slowing to a stop as he neared Troy. He hunched over for a moment, taking a deep breath as he stood back up. "...really, what is UP with you today..."  
  
Troy shrugged. "I like orienteering. YOU on the other hand, I think you hit that fettucini alfredo a little hard last night."  
  
"Hey, do or do not people around here make good food?" he stood up firmly again, moving ahead of Troy. "...how close are we, anyways?"  
  
Troy fished a parchment out of his shell, unfurling it. Mario instinctively seized his compass. "...well, if I'm right we should be a fair distance out of Toad Town and getting closer to the border of Water World. The Trilobite Sea lies straight north, and the Koopahari Desert is south-southwest, and..." he glanced back to Mario, who appeared a tad bit annoyed. "...alright, alright... it should be twenty minutes from here. Peach said that a large abandoned Goomba nest is out in this direction, and so says my guide... Sirius pinpointed energy radiating out from there."  
  
"And you're guessing another keyblade lies out there somewhere."  
  
"Maybe. We gotta get in there and investigate at least. If it is a keyblade we should take it back to the castle, that way if a Keyper does come for it he'll have to play right into our hands, and we'll be able to clue him in about the Vast and whatnot. You know... what he said about people taking the keyblades and doing bad things to them..." Troy heaved a sigh.  
  
"What?"  
  
"He told me on the way to Toad Town... I was getting kind of racy about having to stand up to Bowser and everything... but he said that with something like this in my hands I held the power to take down the entire Koopa Troop if I wanted to."  
  
"You're serious."  
  
"That I am. And the way it just sliced through the Vast back there..." he shivered. "I don't wanna see what it could do to other stuff."  
  
With that, Troy straightened up, beginning to walk away again. Mario took off his cap, wiping his brow as he followed him. No sooner did they get to the top of the next hill, Troy froze again, his view pitched upwards. Mario moved around him. "...I'm not sure if you were told this, but staring at the sun is a bad thing."  
  
"I'm not."  
  
Mario mumbled to himself, trying to follow Troy's vision - his eyes widened. With a great flash the clouds parted, a pair of green lights plummeting downwards with a dark trail of smoke in their wake. Troy winced as they crested the horizon, a massive crackle echoing out throughout the field moments later. He and Mario stared on in disbelief. They were both quick to realize that their excavation was about to become a little harder than Sirius had made it out to be.  
  
"I'm guessing that landed..." Troy threw up his arms, turning to Mario. Mario shook his head dully. "...cripes... whatever the heck that was... we have to get the keyblade out of there quickly, I doubt a Goomba nest would be standing after a hit like that..." he let the keyblade drop to his side, ready for use as he quickly dashed up the hill, Mario in pursuit.  
  
********  
  
Sirius stood at a ornately-carved wooden desk in the castle's tower observatory, its surface completely covered with documents extracted from the depths of the royal libraries. The observatory itself had a selection of writings to itself, but with Sirius up there the shelf load would probably double in due time. He held his hands behind his back, watching as outside the window a similar burst of energy tore down from the heavens. He slowly sat down, resting his elbows on the table and accordingly his massive arms.  
  
"Well, well." Sirius said plainly. "They're here."  
  
"Who's here?" Peach said firmly. Sirius slowly spun his chair around. Peach was back in her regular clothing (all the better to get coated in the observatory's dust with) and had just been torn from doing some reading of her own. "...Sirius?"  
  
"Is it not obvious? People from other worlds are beginning to make their advance into yours. Whether by circumstance or choice, that's beyond my understanding."  
  
"Grrr..." Peach was ready to throw whatever huge volume of the Encyclopedia Fungtannica she had in her hand, but eventually just sighed. "Can you be any more vague?"  
  
"What's there to be vague about? You don't expect the universe to stay still as it quickly comes under siege and is turned into a playground for the Vast, do you? Some have come to seek sanctuary, some now realize their innate power to seek out and find their keyblade whatever world it may lie on, and some are simply castaways from worlds that have been destroyed."  
  
"...destroyed?!"  
  
"...relax... worlds are destroyed not only by the Vast, you know. The case in a world being destroyed occurs only under extreme circumstances, and not only those initiated by the Vast... like, you know, if some scientist develops some sort of weapon of mass destruction and in a typo states in his submission to the world government it has a 20-mile blast radius when in fact it's 20-lightyears, someone coughing on someone else and causing a worldwide plague, you know, little things like that... oh, but don't worry, I assure you that your world is far from obliterated, especially after fighting off the Vast as well as we did... anyways, where was I... oh, yes... in the case of the physical and dimensional fabric of a world being completely annihilated, most forms of life in the process are whisked away randomly to other worlds... just as those who left on their own free will."  
  
"And I'm assuming the Vast situation is the most common out of those?"  
  
Sirius frowned. "...well, just about."  
  
Peach sighed. "I guess it's none of my concern... but, Sirius?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"How exactly do you KNOW that?" she smirked. "...you... YOU'RE from another world too?"  
  
Sirius blinked. "...well.. you could... say so."  
  
"Well, that's just great. Tonight, I'm getting Mario and Luigi AND you up here and we're going to have a little chat. I don't know how I'm going to beat this into that big head of yours, but I'm going to figure out what's going on in the worlds out there... even if I have to bound and gag y..."  
  
Sirius looked highly unamused.  
  
"...hm, 'kay, maybe some other time then... but, I'm just starting to wonder... if any Keypers coming here to find their blades obtain them, there's no real chance of any of THEM holding the power to destroy a world, right?"  
  
"Most definately not. The keyblades in this realm are just awakening... those who are coming to claim them will have no prior experience with them."  
  
"Is there any chance they would be more powerful than Troy?"  
  
"That's not particularly saying much of them."  
  
"Well." Peach fell back in a dusty recliner. "That makes me wonder... why did you split the others into two groups then, if you can't even trust Troy being out there by himself... you talk like he'd just be Goomba chow out there!"  
  
"He's the best you've got." Sirius grumbled, standing. "Do you know how I pinpointed where the possible locations of keyblades were? I didn't. I sent them to the point where dimensional ruptures were depositing their cargo. In the past day I've felt three - two are converging on Troy and Mario's destination, and the other is headed for Luigi and Toad's position."  
  
"The only person out there with a keyblade is Troy, and he's got TWO potential Keypers bearing down on him, and who even KNOWS if they're on our side or not? And what about Luigi? Toad? How are THEY supposed to fight one off?"  
  
"I thought I made this clear from the beginning, Princess." Sirius finished his statement with a hiss. "We DON'T have the resources at this time to guarantee anyone's safety. I decided the groups on the basis of efficiency. And it would be highly unlikely ANY of our guests are Keypers to begin with. It's early... far too early for ANYONE to be jumping worlds. I can't promise anything at this time. For now all we can do is play our cards effectively and hope for the best."  
  
"These... people aren't your, or my pawns!" Peach scowled, rising from her seat again. "You're just going to throw them around wherever you please and 'hope for the best'?!"  
  
"And you have a better plan?"  
  
"What about the Guard?"  
  
"And what if the Vast attacks THIS place? What then?"  
  
"...then I'LL just have to fight them off!"  
  
"Humor me."  
  
"I'll get that keyblade in the basement going. I'll show you... we're not as powerless as you think we are!" Peach threw her arms down, stomping away as Sirius watched with dim eyes.  
  
"...mistake #1."  
  
********  
  
NSX: Chapter 3  
  
A Bridge Too Many  
  
********  
  
Toad shook his head sadly. "Halfwhy Marsh."  
  
Luigi glanced back to Toad before turning back to face the slough. Ahead of them, around them and beneath the aging wooden dock they stood on lied an endless wetland, teeming with every form of slimy life that Luigi could bring to mind. "...that's what you people call this place... huh, I'm just trying to figure out, why Halfwhy?"  
  
"Usually because people get halfway through it before wondering why they ever wanted to come here in the first place." Toad stepped forward, poking at the mud below with his shoe. "It's supposed to be a faster way to the steppes of Dark Land as opposed to travelling through the wastelands, but, well, I rest my case. Now, what did Sirius say? There's supposed to be energy coming from within? Yeah. I know what. Good 'ol swamp gas, that's what."  
  
Luigi was still scratching his head, looking around in the process of being completely oblivious to whatever Toad bothered to say. "Wow... this place REALLY reminds me of.. now what was it..." he snapped his finger. "Yeah! That one issue where Dirk Drain-head was forced to battle through the Noxious Helga's nefarious frog minions at her lair in the bowels of Manhattan to save his lovely Marianne!" He chuckled to himself, resting his hands on his hips as he glanced back down at Toad, who just stared back at him funny. "...what, you guys don't get comics around here?"  
  
"Pe.. Toadstool got a 50-year subscription to Baroness Blueblood for her 14th birthday, that's about my length of comic know-how..."  
  
"Wow... Baroness Blueblood. What she got, ice beams? The ability to control water at will?... uh... blue blood?"  
  
"Let's pretend we never had this conversation." Toad stepped off the dock, wrapping himself the best he could around a tree. Standing on its roots he quickly shuffled to another, repeating the process as Luigi clambered down to the first set of roots. The murky, tar-like soup bubbled beneath them as they quickly navigated from dry haven to dry haven. Toad sighed, resting on his sixth platform - he held himself loosely from the tree. With a thunderous roar the green comet raged through the immediate sky above them, causing Toad to lose his grip - he yelped as he leant backwards on his feet, just about ready to fall off. Luigi lunged forward, grabbing Toad's hand and dragging him back onto his feet.  
  
"Holy macro... what was that?..." Luigi's voice lowered to a mumble.  
  
"It looks like it's going to crash further into the swa-aaah!" he swayed again as a huge crash, followed by a splash rang out through the swamp. "...grrr!!"  
  
"Well.. c'mon, we got further to go." Luigi jerked Toad back onto his feet. "...we can wait until we get what we came for, then we can go investigate that thing..."  
  
"Did I ever say I wanted to?"  
  
"Point." Luigi leapt over to the next tree, wrapping around himself and sliding down to the hardened dirt surrounding its base. The ground was steadily continuing to lower beneath the two as they progressed, and the water around them bubbled over into the deepening swamp. The two had easily gotten another 50 meters below that, nearly stepping on and/or being torn apart by the native wildlife, before the smell coming out from everywhere had finally become overpowering.  
  
"Awwf..." Luigi held his nose shut. "...something die down here?"  
  
"Every other day." Toad was now far ahead of Luigi, having no annoying nose to speak of. Luigi noticed, taking a deep breath and grappling through the trees. Finally landing on the roots behind Toad, he took a deep breath - through his nose. He started to hack, beating on his chest a few times before finally getting his breathing back to a bearable level. He continued walking, almost completely tripping over Toad. "...wha? What's here?"  
  
Toad stood in place, looking around. "...you hear that?"  
  
"Helloooo?"  
  
Luigi jumped in place. "Yipes... swamp ghosts!"  
  
Toad stared at him blankly.  
  
"...helloooo!"  
  
"Hey!" Toad shouted. "Over here!"  
  
"Wha?" Luigi glanced around again.  
  
"Hello?" the voice was closer now. Now Toad could make it out more clearly - it was that of a young girl.  
  
"Yeah, over here!" Toad waved his arm, hoping that it would be seen.  
  
Luigi glanced over to an adjacent mound of dirt - a girl did, in fact, step out of the thick mist. She blinked as she moved into plain sight, flashing her bright blue eyes. She looked no older than 15, and wore a long, bright yellow blouse. She had shoulder-length brown hair, curled up slightly at its end - however, she still on the whole looked roughed up a fair bit. As Toad began to work his way towards her platform, Luigi followed.  
  
She shook her head, stepping backwards as Toad landed near her. He glanced up at her, frowning. "...now what's a girl doing this far out into Halfwhy?"  
  
"...Halfwhy..." she glanced around, obviously not as aware of her surroundings as either Luigi or Toad would have believed. "...Halfwhy?! Where am I? Wha.. how... where is everyone?" she gaped, slapping a hand on her forehead as she glanced around again. "...Tiiiidusss!! Waakkaaaaa!!" oblivious to the two she turned around, calling out to the swamp. She grit her teeth as she panned her vision again, throwing up her arms in defeat. "Where ARE those two? Where am I?!" she spun around again, finally taking notice of Luigi and Toad. Both blinked at her curiously. Spotting the mushroom retainer she leapt back from the alien-looking creature - stumbling and falling back. Once again Luigi yanked another person away from the viscous goop below.  
  
"Calm down..." Luigi muttered. "...now... who's.. Teedus? And Wakka?"  
  
She was already pacing around again. "...no, this isn't home, that's for sure... hey, I know, those little black guys must've just sent me somewhere, somehow..." she spun around to face the two again. "Hey, you don't happen to know where the Destiny Islands are from here, do you?" she waited, tapping her feet as Luigi and Toad stared dully at her.  
  
"Destiny Islands?" Toad said.  
  
She slumped down in defeat. "...wow... I must've been flung out far... what just HAPPENED back there, anyways?"  
  
"What happened where?" Luigi asked.  
  
The girl stared back up sadly at the pair. "...it's... a long story."  
  
********  
  
Troy and Mario slowed down, regaining their breath as they began to walk into the grove of decayed/decaying trees ahead of them. The sight was familiar to Troy - a Goomba nest, ironically, was enough of a breeding ground for every specie of fungi in the book that the very vitality of the land could be siphoned out in from underneath it. As was the usual grounds upon which nests were established, places that were ripe for the abusal. The rapidly dimming grass beneath them stopped, now replaced by a carpet of brown mold - decay still occuring, but the cover itself was harder than Mario would have first thought.  
  
"I don't see a whole lot of nesting going on here." Mario pressed his foot down, hopping back in surprise as the lichen crunched beneath his weight.  
  
"The nests are underground. The fungi up here just feeds nutrients to the chambers down below..." Troy looked around, holding himself up against a tree. "I'm surprised we haven't been chased out of here yet, to tell you the truth."  
  
"What if something else scared THEM out?" Mario said firmly. He stood unfazed, watching as a Micro-goomba skittered around his leg. He blinked, looking down at it as it hunched up instinctively to his boot - trembling obviously more out of fear than anything else. Mumbling to himself he looked back up to see what the matter was. A long distance ahead, a large clearing stood - the shattered trees spread across the ground every which way, with a glowing green gap in the ground lying in the center. "...Troy."  
  
"...let's check it out." Troy nodded, drawing forth his keyblade. "...you.. just wait here for a second, okay?"  
  
"...eh? What, you think something's gonna come out of that hole and-"  
  
"Nothing surprises me anymore." Troy set foot down the lane - stumbling back again as the crevice let out an ear-piercing screech. A massive column of light leapt up from the crater, its noise racking the air as the blindness left Troy's eyes. "...I stand corrected."  
  
The shaft of energy slowly closed in on itself. Troy slowly began to make his way towards it, Mario following slowly. As Troy edged closer to the trench, the light eminating from deep within gradually began to dim, the light of actual day taking over. Troy took a solid step forward, placing himself at the edge. Crouching, and with Mario peering over his shoulder, Troy stuck his head over the edge. Down in the darkness, a tiny shred of green light could be seen, waning...  
  
"I'm not liking this..." Mario quickly backpedaled. "...c'mon, I think we've seen all we needed..."  
  
"...I second the motion." Troy said blankly.  
  
He froze as a pair of beady red eyes stared back at him.  
  
"CRIPES!!" Troy screeched as the ground beneath him exploded, sending him flying back a fair ways. Mario quickly moved over to him, dragging him back onto his feet. As Troy began to right himself, Mario quickly dusted himself off the best he could. "...WHAT.. was THAT?!"  
  
Mario stared up into the air. The sun was virtually blocked out by a dark silouette. "Move."  
  
Troy let out a half-yelp again as he and Mario leapt backwards, both landing roughly upon the fungus. The Micro-goomba let out a shriek as it darted away in a winding path. Mario threw his weight back onto his hands, and bounded back onto his feet. Troy was slowly pushing himself back to his feet as the sun faded again. He coughed, looking up.  
  
Bowser was pretty much nothing to Troy now.  
  
Standing in front of them, towering nearly as high as Bowser, was a massively-built man - sheeted from head to toe in jagged, almost ritually-crafted dark armor. His left hand, clenched in a raged fist, was contained in a great onyx gauntlet. His other arm was downright deformed - a crimson, cancer-like growth of muscle, it easily being a foot wide. At its end was an enormous claw. His knight visor shuffled with an unearthly clank as he shifted his head - it had a pair of batwing-like outshoots on the side shooting backwards, a dark red ponytail spilling out from behind that hung down by his legs... and a pair of fiery eyes piercing out from within.  
  
Mario was far enough back to gape in an appropriate matter. Troy feet his legs become shaky as he slowly began to stumble back, the keyblade taking a little less precedance in his mind at the moment. "...I... uh... er... oh... eep."  
  
The man slouched, letting his uneven arms fall to rest. He took no notice of Troy as he reached back, stretching. Afterwards he cracked his neck, and simply walked away. Troy's eyes uneasily followed him as he made his way over to a nearby tree, running his bulky claw across its surface. Troy gulped as he pulled the outer layer of bark he had scraped off with even that light a motion. He stood there for a moment, staring at his claw before relaxing it again. Slowly he craned his head to the sky, a low chuckle eventually escaping from within the armor.  
  
Troy scratched the back of his head, taking a deep breath.  
  
"My, my..." he growled, suddenly turning his glare to Troy. "...just what is this place, anyways? I never thought I'd end up in a hole like this... everything I've seen on my way in.. this world is just some kind of fairy tale... never seeing any of the darker side of life... here I am, looking down on a walking, talking turtle and his fashion-challenged comrade... mushroom people... no war, no battles, no tragedy... it is now I wonder... for what logical reason does this world have keyblades, if there are none who know their true power... their true potential?"  
  
"And what would that be?" Troy frowned.  
  
"Complete and utter universal domination, why, of course." he snarled. "Too many worlds are like yours, my friend... too shallow in your own existance to be my equal as a perpetual threat... at least that way you could know how to defend yourself. I came to this world to find more keyblades... and, if I'm not terribly mistaken..."  
  
"W-wha?!" Troy felt his arm jerk, swinging up the keyblade in front of him.  
  
The dark soldier shook his head. "Tsk... I don't know who in the hell put you in charge of a keyblade... you simple-minded fool... now, I will crush you... as I hope to crush all others in this world in the pursuit of power..."  
  
Troy held on tight to the keyblade, its end beginning to bob as he mumbled. "...uh, Mario... do you think I can take him?..."  
  
Mario blinked. "...uh.. well..."  
  
"Hey, I took down Bowser, didn't I?"  
  
"Bowser didn't have a greatsword."  
  
Troy whirled around, wide-eyed.  
  
"COME, SOUL EDGE!" The warrior leant onto his right leg, stancing himself as he cast his claw to the sky. A great void appeared above him, lowering the ethereal form of a massive triangular blade that was nearly his height. He threw his claw around its hilt, causing dark energy to flow into the weapon - quickly it began to take physical shape, the actual blade of the weapon a crudely-carved plank of metal held in place by a billowing pillar of deformed flesh. Above its hilt an eye pierced out, twitching wildly as the skin around it locked it into place. He threw his other hand up, grabbing tightly onto the Soul Edge as he spun, cleaving the air. "...I hunt for the keyblades... as much as I wield my own! Those fallen to me know me as Nightmare... as you will!!"  
  
Troy stepped back, trying to hold back his pounding heart as he stared unto the demonic weapon. Quite ironically, it stared back. "...there's.. no way that's a keyblade.. right? I mean, I think it would need to be more.. uh... keyish..."  
  
"Well, I suppose that confirms things," Nightmare said cooly. "...you really need to put that weapon of yours in the hands of someone with an IQ greater THAN 10!!"  
  
"I take offense to that." Troy said dully. "What makes yours stronger than mine?... Mine will cut through your Vast just as easily." he raised the CHRONICLE, pointing it forward in its usual pose.  
  
Mario glanced between the two as a long pause followed. Eventually, Nightmare's shoulders bucked. They did again. Eventually, he completely threw his head back, bellowing out a long, hard laugh. "...by the gods... you really think I've got Vast in me, don't you? Just because you aren't having your way with me? You've got a lot to learn if you think that people out there can't think such things on their own from time to time! I can't help but give you some regards... you, of all people, some little reptile I can and will crush beneath my foot, fighting in the name of all that is good?" Nightmare swung the massive SOUL EDGE forward, in very much the same posture as Troy. "...now, I agree you have the power. The power to remain still and accept oblivion."  
  
"Righty-o." Troy skippped forward, quickly finding himself being held back by Mario.  
  
"Are you CRAZY?" Mario grit his teeth, glaring at Nightmare again. "...this isn't Bowser! This is a LOT WORSE! This is Bowser with a keyblade, and in my opinion his looks a teensy bit more menacing than yours!"  
  
"But in the end it's still a keyblade, right?" Troy shoved Mario away, smirking. "You heard what Sirius said... again, and again, and again... and again before we left... Keypers might possibly come to this world... but the keyblades are just getting warmed up, and I doubt Nightmare here's got a whole lot of playtime with his yet either."  
  
Mario backed away, shaking his head. "I can't watch..."  
  
"Any day now." Nightmare droned.  
  
Troy swung his keyblade behind him, suddenly launching forward at Nightmare. He leapt, adding his other hand to the weapon as he lashed downwards at him. Troy grimaced as a loud clang ran out, Nightmare virtually suspending Troy in the air with the SOUL EDGE as it and the CHRONICLE hit.  
  
"Ridiculous." Nightmare said softly. Troy was thrown back up into the air as another shock of dark energy shot through the blade. Troy numbed up nearly instantly as the energy tore through him, making him fall back down limply to the earth. Nightmare began to recharge, lunging forward and spinning - slamming his clenched, overcharged claw into him as he fell to his level. Troy rocketed off in a straight line, eventually hitting the ground and carving a long trench in the fungus. He stanced himself, holding up the massive blade once again and reeling back as it shot out a wave of energy wisps. They riddled the ground off in the distance, blasting the vegetation around Troy's position to pieces - there was no telling what was happening within.  
  
Mario shivered, slowly turning back to Nightmare. Troy's state was unknown, but it was probably an unpleasant one. "...how.. what was that for?! He's not even a teenager for-"  
  
"Even through all of my threats he was the first to attack. Can I defend myself?"  
  
"YAAAH!!" in a flash, a battered Troy rushed at his side, lashing out with his blade - he leapt upwards, carving the blade clean through Nightmare's calves and up to his midsection - as soon as the airborne Troy realized that he hadn't actually cut anything, however, he lost his balance, causing him to land awkwardly on his heels. "WHAT?!"  
  
"Well, I give you my regards. I'm not sure whether you evaded my attack or survived it, but the fact that you're back onto me isn't really important. What were you trying to do, anyways... probe me? You want to check my temperature or something?! You can't even HARM me physically because you're so goddamned intent on trying to destroy Vast with it at this moment!"  
  
Troy growled, remembering back to Sirius' first speech - the CHRONICLE wouldn't be able to physically harm people or things unless he willed it to.. but how was he supposed to go about that?  
  
"You can't stop me." Nightmare slowly walked up to Troy, causing him to stumble backwards and fall on his back. "I control my keyblade, and it does as I command. You're just some fool drug along on a leash by fate. If you are a Keyper against the Vast, then that is all you are good for... and you are just another pawn, waiting to be toppled by those who seek true enlightenment by the keyblades... and don't think a fireball to the back of my head is going to change things, you might as well be throwing lighted matches at me... I do wear armor for a reason, you know..."  
  
Mario grumbled in defeat, dismissing the bright flame from his hand.  
  
Troy winced as he rolled over, exposing the fractures running along the back of his shell.  
  
"Well! I guess I did do something to you. But... now I believe it's time I did everything..." Nightmare growled, slowly lifting up the SOUL EDGE. Troy groped around for the CHRONICLE, but eventually found it knocked a short distance away from him. He stared back up at Nightmare, shielding his face as he leapt up, ready to bring the massive sword down on his head.  
  
wt-tang  
  
Nightmare didn't notice immediately but his weapon was now held in front of him, wobbling as it tried to force an unseen obstacle out of the way. Troy, noticing, rolled away, leaping back to his feet and getting back to a safe distance with the CHRONICLE in tow. He didn't notice what exactly had slowed Nightmare down before he and Mario checked back.  
  
The SOUL EDGE was tied up with another sword - an enormous daikatana. Nightmare fought for control of his weapon, its oppressor coping with the force. He was tall, though not as high as Nightmare, and was wrapped in a large red, black-trimmed overcoat, with a series of belts holding it wrapped at the waist. One arm stuck out of its sleeve, the other sticking out from the loose center opening above the beltline, to which a large flask hung loosely. The large, baggy collar of the coat kept any facial features below his nose concealed. A pair of shades hung just below his dim eyes - his right was held shut, a large scar crossing it vertically. His head was covered on top by ragged, faded black hair.  
  
"Sigfried, Sigfried." the swordsman sighed. "You really are getting no better."  
  
"You..." Nightmare growled. He quickly drew his blade from the lock, spinning and performing a massive downwards cleave with his right hand. It was evaded easily, and Nightmare could only make another angered growl as he slashed back diagonally in his opponent's direction. This time the SOUL EDGE was deflected again by the other massive blade. "...allow me to make one thing clear... I am no longer Sigfried... I have surpassed that feeble name..."  
  
"You really are a nightmare. But, really, I was figuring you would at least be a nightmare to someone your own size." This time it was him that escaped the grapple, gliding to the left and delivering a solid strike to Nightmare's right pauldron. He reeled back from the blow, blocking the ground in time with his weapon and springing back at the man. As the SOUL EDGE was raised it suddenly ignited, Nightmare letting out a roar as he smashed downwards, sending out a flaming shockwave. The warrior jammed his katana into the crowd, seeming to completely catapault off it as the tremor tore apart the ground beneath him. He swung his sword upwards, ready to bring it down on Nightmare - Nightmare quickly caught on, bringing the SOUL EDGE back in a wide swing that collided with his attacker. A flash of a blue barrier could be seen as the man in red tumbled to the ground in a flip, landing on one knee. He swung out his blade to one side as he locked eyes with Troy. "You! LEAVE! NOW!!"  
  
"But-"  
  
"Now! I don't know how long I can hold off Nightmare! Just get out of here! I'll try to meet up with you later... but for now it is your responsibility to protect your keyblade!"  
  
Troy ground his teeth, fondling the keyblade as he glanced back at Mario. He had already taken off, and as well was calling out to Troy. "TROY! You heard 'im, he's standing up better to him than you, let's MOVE!"  
  
Troy shot another worried glance back. "...well... thanks... but, I still didn't get your name..."  
  
"Auron." he said gruffly. "Now, may we continue this discussion at another time?" he turned his focus back to Nightmare, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Troy was beginning his retreat. He watched the two carry themselves out of the grove, quickly disappearing down the hill as he himself locked eyes with Nightmare once more.  
  
"Well... what a pity. It appears I'll just have to take YOUR keyblade instead." Nightmare slung the SOUL EDGE over his back, waving on Auron. "Well... it does seem a bit more powerful... then again, its owner has a brain... shall we?"  
  
Auron glared at Nightmare, drawing his MURASAME once more.  
  
Troy watched over his shoulder every step of his way.  
  
********  
  
Luigi trudged over the next hill, Toad behind him, and Selphie in tow further behind. Luigi was still a bit shaken, Toad was still thinking about what Selphie had said and was also planning a picnic if the weather was this great tomorrow, and Selphie was still a tad intrigued about all the metal boxes floating in the air everywhere. They had long left the marshes and the barren wastes that bordered it, and were now back in Mushroom Kingdom territory - nothing but rolling hills, sheeted in deep grass, clouds in the sky and not a tree in sight. The gates of Toad Town could be made out in the distance, easily a fifteen-minute walk.  
  
"...so you're saying... that a hurricane and a bunch of black gooey little men tag-teamed your Destiny Islands... that sounds a little too convenient... we were just attacked by things perfectly matching that description... well, not word-for-word, but Bowser did happen to throw off a couple of 'em while we were busy fighting off his troops..."  
  
"Is that the guy that you said attacked your kingdom...? Sounds like a mean guy... about as mean as the.. Vast, or whatever you call it..."  
  
"Just wondering, Selphie or whatever... exactly how did the Vast destroy your island, anyways?"  
  
"I don't know... it was late at night, I'd just gotten to bed after eating some Frosted Sugar Bombs cereal, and the moment I could fall asleep... BAM! A storm had just sprung out of nowhere... I crept towards the window and the first thing I saw... was this little imp just staring at me with hollow eyes... just creeped the heck out of me! But, a moment later, I could already see one of my friends out in the storm already! He was just running around all these little things, trying to beat them back with a dinky little wooden sword of his as he ran off... of course... I snuck out and followed him..."  
  
By now both Luigi and Toad had stopped. "...what then?"  
  
"I was lagging behind him a bit but I managed to get out onto the beach... what I saw only weirder yet! He was standing there... he ditched his sword for some kind of big key-thingy and the ground beneath him was getting torn apart! It was getting thrown into the sky, along with all the beach around it! I tried to run but the hurricane caught up to me and just tossed me into the sky!"  
  
"A keyblade! Your friend's got a key-UUH!" Luigi felt himself getting twisted around by the half-pint Toad.  
  
"A what?" Selphie was visibly confused, not that she wasn't before.  
  
"Shut your TRAP!" Toad snapped. "She's messed up totally... she's far from home, she's lost her friends and the last thing we need to do is drag her into more trouble! If her friend's got a keyblade, good for him, right now we should be focusing on HELPING this girl, wherever she's from and whatever happened to her."  
  
"But Sirius-"  
  
"Sirius'll get the point. I'm sure of it." Toad quickly spun around, quickly regaining a wide smile.  
  
"That's what I'm afraid of..." Luigi rubbed the side of his waist where Toad had dug into. "What happened then?"  
  
Toad threw up his arms in defeat.  
  
"...I don't know... the last thing I remember seeing is the same guy, stuck on one of the larger chunks of rock... right in front of him was another thing made out of that black stuff... but it was HUGE... it had its giant arms dug into the rock and everything... I hope he's alright..."  
  
"What was his name?"  
  
"Sora." Selphie nodded.  
  
"That's just spiffy." Toad rubbed his hands together. "Now, miss, we understand the situation you're in... as you know, we've run into that same situation too... though we managed to fight them off. If you'd let us, we can get you a place to stay for the time being while we figure out this whole mess, and we'll do everything in our power to try to get you home. That alright?"  
  
Selphie nodded fervently. "Yeah. Yeah! For complete strangers you guys aren't too bad..."  
  
"I'm Toad." Toad ushered out his hand.  
  
"Name's Luigi." as did Luigi.  
  
"Selphie Tilmitt." she stuck out hers, twitching as she noticed both greetings. She brought both their hands together, slapping hers down on top. "Pleased to meetcha. I'm guessing this is your guys' abode?"  
  
"We are representatives of the royal family of this kingdom... we were out in the Halfwhy Marshes for a... expedition. Yeah. Anyways, you can bet you'll get somewhere comfy to park yourself until we can figure out what's going on here, like we said..." Toad glanced over as Luigi's stare began to wander. Over the next hill Troy and Mario could be seen holding up a very dogged windsprint. "...well... looks like we've got company."  
  
"...Troy looks a little beat up." Luigi mumbled. He stepped towards them as the two stumbled up to them. "...uh.. hey, what's up? What's the rush..."  
  
Troy was bent over, wheezing as he barely managed to hold the CHRONICLE on his shoulder. "I'll TELL you what! We almost got creamed back there! We were at the site that Sirius pointed out to us, and this giant friggin' armored dude just came out of nowhere and threatened us for my keyblade! That's not the point... he was MASSIVE! And he had this huge gooey-looking sword-thing that... well..." Troy impatiently tried to charade the SOUL EDGE. "...but that's not the best part, he was telling us that it was a keyblade! Now, how that kind of thing could be a keyblade, I don't know, but-"  
  
"He called himself Nightmare." Mario interjected. "...anyways, Troy was getting thrown around a bit, and-"  
  
"You didn't do anything?" Luigi said dully.  
  
"Flicking sparks at him wasn't really my best option at the time." Mario grumbled. "...this OTHER guy revealed himself, calling himself Auron, and he just laid into Nightmare... I don't know for sure but I think he was trying to defend us... he told us to get out of there, and, well, here we are... well, Troy tried to defend himself, but that didn't go really well... I think if he didn't have that shell of his he'd be in more than one piece instead of it."  
  
"Speaking of which..." Troy rubbed the back of his plain green shell. "...anyone got any superglue?"  
  
"He's got a key just like him!" Selphie hopped up in down in place. Toad and Luigi tried their hardest to ignore her.  
  
"It's a long story... anyways, I didn't find any keyblade... except Nightmare's, if you want to get technical about it... I guess we'd better be heading in now..."  
  
Everyone heaved a sigh, heading towards the gates down below. As Troy fell to the back of the group, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder to notice Selphie. "...uh.. hey... I guess I didn't properly introduce myself... I'm Troy, and yes, you're talking to a walking sentient turtle... if you're comfortable with that I'd be surprised... it seems people that come from other worlds seem to be uncomfortable with that..."  
  
"...other worlds?" Selphie tensed up. "...what's that supposed to mean..."  
  
"...nothing.. I've... just had some run-ins with the interstellar types lately... sorry if I made an assumption there..."  
  
Selphie blinked. "...right... anyways, I was just wondering something..." the two both started walking again, entering the wide-open gates of the city once more. Troy felt a great weight shift off his shoulders as he set foot down on the familiar cobblestone. "...I was wondering where you got that keyblade from."  
  
"You know, huh." Troy sighed.  
  
"Not really... that... big... green guy, what's his name..."  
  
"Luigi."  
  
"Yeah. But you could tell he was holding something back there. A friend of mine... oh, you weren't around, were you... anyways, I'm guessing what these guys call the Vast attacked the island where I lived and flung me out somewhere... somewhere being here... anyways, one of my friends, the last I saw of him was when he was holding a big key thing sorta like yours."  
  
Troy cringed. Her otherworldly origins weren't so hard to doubt now - still, he kept his mouth shut. "...well.. I found it in a big pile of debris underground, to tell you the truth... that was before I met up with Sirius, and ever since he's been guiding us in ways to stop the Vast from greatly affecting this wor.. place. Seems these things are the only weapons that can fight it properly, or so I hear..."  
  
"Then I guess Sora's in good hands then." Selphie sighed.  
  
"Sora?" Troy mumbled.  
  
"...yeah, that's him. I guess a way to translate it would be that he was fighting the Vast when I last saw him..."  
  
Troy stared back at the ground. "Well, I guess we're not alone then. I'll have to be trying my best too..."  
  
"You fight the Vast a lot?"  
  
"Not really. But we've only really seen the beginning. Sirius likes to say that a lot."  
  
"Who's Sirius, anyways?"  
  
"...oh, he came from.. a long ways away to warn us about the Vast... he helped me find my keyblade and set us all on our feet. This kingdom here's started to set its resources into motion to help us out, so things can only really go uphill from here. If you want to know more, you can always ask Sirius. He knows everything about the Vast and stuff."  
  
Troy and Selphie were a distance away from the remainder of the group at this point. Mario could easily be heard up front, falling with a thud to the street. "...ow! What the..."  
  
Troy blinked. With a pitter of rapid stepping, a little man had settled in front of him, glancing this way and that before noticing Troy standing in front of him. Troy wasn't sure what to be confused about - that he looked outright freakish or that he was even shorter than his 4'7". A bright red robe several dozen sizes too big housed a green little man, glaring at the two through his huge swirly glasses.  
  
"Finkrats like yourselves will stop from being the pylons in my road! Move now with speed unless you will be moved with the force of a city bus times ten thousand!"  
  
Before Troy could decide what really was the plural noun of bus, he was promptly plowed into by the midget, sending him sprawling backwards across the cobblestone as the culprit escaped off into the distance. Troy painfully pushed himself up, feeling the shell beneath him buckle. "...I think that's the last nail in the coffin." he and Selphie quickly made their way over to the rest of the group, which had just helped Mario onto his feet.  
  
"...who was that?" Selphie asked.  
  
"Whoever he is, he don't look like a regular." Toad said. The group turned around to find Peach stumbling towards them, letting out loud wheezes. "...eh.. princess, should you be out of the castle right now... dressed like that?"  
  
"That little freak just walked right into the castle and tried to take the keyblade!" she breathed, straightening up. "...lucky SOMEONE was around to watch it!" she held up the device, waving it around for a bit before letting it rest at her side again.  
  
"Another one?" Selphie murmred.  
  
"It's a long story." Troy glanced at her, and back to the crowd. "...uh.. well, what about Sirius? Isn't he around?"  
  
"That idiot is out exploring, excavating, expeditioning, whatever he likes to call it... he said that he was going to try to pinpoint more keyblades or something. Is that all he's got in his head, keyblade keyblade keyblade? I mean, it's not like I don't want to find out more about them too, but he just can't be controlled. I imagine he'd be back soon... I think... hey, did you guys manage to find anymore? And who's your friend here?"  
  
"We found this girl lost in the marsh, around where a green... thing hit the ground." Toad sighed. "We're getting the assumption she's a long ways from home, so would it be alright if we let her hang around for a bit? You know... until we.. find out what all these people are doing getting flung across our world."  
  
"I'm not the only one?"  
  
"I'm one." Luigi slurred, sticking up his hand.  
  
"I'm not being told something here." Selphie ground her fists into her sides. Everyone looked at each other. "...alright, Troy, you were going to say that I was thrown to another world, right?"  
  
"Well, I-"  
  
"DING DING! 200 POINTS FOR SELPHIE!" Selphie half-laughed, half-pouted. She made her way off the ground, dropping against the grass off the main road. "...something was a little wrong when I found out that I was found by a man and his little mushroom buddy! There's no WAY I could be anywhere the Destiny Islands now! And from you guys talking about the Vasp or whatever every other minute I think you know what's going on here! Did I hit my head? Am I dreaming? Or did I really get roughed up and thrown into another universe?"  
  
"I was hoping you people would keep your mouths shut." Troy spun around, spotting Sirius as he entered between the city gates. "...can I not leave you people for one minute without you YELLING at everyone about the Vast?!"  
  
"Sorry." Troy sighed.  
  
Selphie stuck out her hand. "You must be Sirius... hi, I'm Selphie Tilm-"  
  
Sirius marched straight by, heading in the direction of the castle. Selphie's face twitched as she watched him walk off down the street. Sirius paused, glancing over his broad shoulder. "...all of you... we're meeting back in the castle. And.. Selphie... Tilmitt, sorry, I've had a bit of a rough day." everyone continued to watch as he slowly continued on his way.  
  
"...tough..." Selphie grimaced. "...is he always like that?"  
  
"Yeah." Peach muttered.  
  
"He's just a bit uptight about this entire Vast thing... once you get to know him he's not so bad." Troy continued to stare off in Sirius' direction. "...still, I wonder what've happened out there to put him in that kind of mood..."  
  
"...well... anyways," Peach sighed. "We'd better get inside... it's been a long day and the retainers and servants have already begun mixing up some supper for us..." she suddenly noticed Toad's glare. "...okay, DINNER. Why do we have to be so formal about these things? We've got bigger things to be worrying about at the moment than freaking formality..."  
  
"Let's get some eats." Troy marched off, leading the crowd.  
  
********  
  
Supper was served in the same hall in which Bowser and the regal figures of the Mushroom Kingdom met, this time lit not by candlelight but a brilliant sunset visible through the ornate glass windows that took up most of the walls on either side of the chamber. The food being served was certainly better than what had been served to the king of the Koopas during his summit with the Dynasty, which sort of irked Troy. As everyone did during their previous meals, they continued to ignore Troy as he ate, making a stained warzone out of the tablecloth in front of him. An hour passed, and everyone found themselves listening to the head of the table as they did every evening.  
  
"...I'm under the assumption at this point the key hunt isn't going too well..." Peach murmured.  
  
"We did find things... well, not keyblades, as you might've noticed." Luigi and the others all glared at Selphie, who let out a weak laugh.  
  
"I found one, alright.. except I was having the crap beaten out of me with it." Troy sighed.  
  
"Tell me, Troy..." Sirius continued to stare down at the table. "What did this Keyper look like? And you said that another intervened and helped you escape... could you explain this all to me?"  
  
Troy grumbled as he stood up, explaining again to the group about his encounter with Nightmare and Auron. As he finished, he planted his hands on the table, sitting back down. Sirius looked particularly intrigued.  
  
"Tough guys, yeah..." Mario scratched the back of his head. "...the big one was way out of Troy's league... he's lucky that Auron showed up when he did to save us, otherwise we'd be mincemeat from that giant blade of his..."  
  
"What did I just TELL you guys?" Troy glared at Mario. "I told you, I was about to deliver the finishing blow, and then he just countered like WHAM! And he sends me flying! Some cheap blow that was!" he sat back, his arms folded as he looked through the group.  
  
"That's not what you told us." Toad smirked.  
  
"I don't tell people a lot of things." Troy shot back.  
  
"If you got out of there without so much as a scratch, what's that then?" Sirius pointed to the hairline fracture on Troy's shell.  
  
"What's what?"  
  
Wooster, sitting next to Troy, rubbed his chin as he examined the damage. Humming, he pressed on it with his finger. Everyone went deadpan as Troy's shell let out a deafening crack, suddenly crumbling apart into several large chunks and leaving him in nothing but his boxers. Troy stood up to speak, quickly realizing the error of that action as he sweatdropped. "I can explain."  
  
"I hate to break up your discussion here," the king tugged at his collar. "...but I believe we have an updated status on our oil deal."  
  
Two retainers took up trumpets, playing an agonizingly bad entree as a Shyguy rushed into the room, carrying an envelope the size of him under his arm. He quickly darted up to the table, tearing it apart and holding up the telegram. He began to read it out, his voice muffled by his huge mask. "...From Bowser of the Dark Land kingdom of the Koopas STOP. The Koopa kingdom sends out this message in hopes that STOP the Mushroom Kingdom's officials will receive this in time STOP. We regret to inform you that we have lost control of our oil STOP facility to attacking foriegners. Nationality unknown. Reports have STOP identified them as the Vast specimen. We request STOP immediate assistance in stopping these aggressors from halting our oil STOP processing. Expanding on 99th brigade member Troy Kiemen's success in routing the STOP epidemic earlier, we recommend he be placed on our liberation team, that is, STOP, if you still want your oil STOP. Signed, STOP, King Bowser Koopa, STOP."  
  
"Brilliant. Just brilliant." Toadsworth buried his head in his hands.  
  
"Troy, you know what you must do." Sirius folded his hands.  
  
"...yeah." Troy nodded. "...still, Bowser suggesting me of all people to lead the charge? That's some kind of honor..."  
  
"What is that, anyways?" Peach muttered, folding her arms. "He just wants Troy? What about the rest of us? What's there to say we can't do a thing?"  
  
"Because you can't. That is all." Sirius responded. "...anyone fighting the Vast directly without a keyblade is just fodder. In its presence... if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."  
  
"What if I had a keyblade?"  
  
"Are you still convinced that your keyblade is actually yours? For all you know it could belong to someone millions of lightyears away in the universe, and he/she's on his/her way to pick it up as we speak. Don't assume because it happened to be sitting in your basement it truly belongs to you."  
  
"But I know.. it has to! I've waited so long to discover other worlds, to explore, and as long as this keyblade remains as an active link to those places I'll believe in it! And even if this isn't mine, I'll FIND a keyblade out there somewhere, I'm sure of it! If I can't find it myself, if you guys can't, then I'll have to broaden my search... and get a few more helping hands. I bet Daisy'd be more than happy to help me look for mine if it meant that she could come along too!"  
  
"Daisy?" Mario asked.  
  
"...the Mushroom Dynasty is connected to a slew of smaller ones." Toad explained. "...Peach's sister helps in the running of the desert kingdom of Sarasaland. It's way far south, on a continent south of the Koopahari desert... some people like to think of it as an island extension of the Koopahari desert, though they themselves prefer not to call it that. It's divided up into four provinces; Birabuto, the main desert/wasteland sector of the continent, Muda, the outer islands, Easton, a mountainous region east of the main cities, and Chai, the ring of plateaus that finish surrounding them. All in all, they're close to Land's End as well."  
  
"And you know all this?" Luigi said. "...you've got good relations going on with 'em, eh?"  
  
"They're our primary trading partner... we get glass materials and lumbers from them mostly... and, yeah, I need a new hobby."  
  
"Even if this were your keyblade," Sirius growled. "You have NO training with it... what makes you think you could stand up to the Vast on your own?!"  
  
Peach frowned, drawing the new keyblade from under the table where it laid. She braced it against the back of her neck, resting her arms over both ends. "...and what about Troy? I mean, I think he's great with the thing and all, but he didn't have any training with it, or any weapon for that matter! I hate having to keep say it.. but I'm a princess, that doesn't make me defenseless. If Troy's heading out tomorrow to the Koopahari desert tomorrow, then I'm going with him. And I'm taking the keyblade with me."  
  
The king was at a loss of words. Sirius quickly filled in. "...common last words."  
  
"Even if I turn out useless, Troy'll keep an eye on me. Right?"  
  
Troy glanced through the group, eventually locking eyes with Peach. He nodded fervently, turning a beet red. "...er-yeah!" Selphie rolled her eyes.  
  
"Question..." Mario rested his head on one hand, sticking up his other. "...you KNEW we could have run into Keypers? Then why did you send Weegi, Toad and me out if you knew we'd be defenseless? It's starting to sound like you're more concerned about the keyblades than us!"  
  
--------  
  
What if I am?  
  
--------  
  
"...my apologies." Sirius nodded. "...it's just... getting a lead on the keyblades was an urgent matter... as you've seen, people have started to come into our world... at an alarming rate. It's imperative that we secure as many as we can before their hosts arrive... it's not known if any of them have dark intentions.. but in Nightmare's case, it is very much possible. Troy and... Peach are heading out to the Koopahari desert tomorrow. In the meanwhile, the rest of us will continue our search. That is all. Now if you'll excuse me.. I have some reading to catch up on." everyone watched Sirius as he stood, shoving his chair in.   
  
As he strode away, Peach noticed him giving him a cold stare. She turned back to the table, waiting for the door to click shut before scowling. "...what is UP with him..."  
  
"I'm more concerned what's up with YOU." the king said sternly. "...why are you so convinced that you yourself have a keyblade now? I agree with Sirius to some extent, you can't just rush out there blindly swinging that thing around. This is a matter for Troy, we've confirmed he has his rightful keyblade. Please, Toadstool, just calm down for now..."  
  
"...why is it.. that whenever you say something..." Peach sulked. "...you make it sound so right?... I guess.. I need to cool down for a bit, if I ever get a keyblade I can't expect it to be right away... well, whatever..."  
  
"That's better." the monarch nodded, turning to Troy. "...anyways, speaking of Bowser, I appear to have a special delivery for you out front."  
  
********  
  
Troy gaped, slapping his forehead. "...CRAP!"  
  
"Crap what?" the king asked.  
  
"I forgot all about the kart tourney! CRAP CRAP CRAP!!" Troy beat his head against the outside wall of the fort, before the king drug him back and turned him to face the courtyard. Sitting at the bottom of the steps was a small go-kart, sheeted in glossy, cherry-red paint. It puttered as it sat in neutral, Iggy Koopa sitting in the seat.  
  
"Well, dad says that if you're gonna be away from Last Chance Ramparts, you might as well take your stuff with you." he nodded, his bushy, prism-colored hair bobbing in pursuit. "...you got a spiffy ride here, it worked great in the tourney!"  
  
Troy twitched. "..you...?"  
  
"...took home the gold! Dad'll be so proud..." Iggy dug out the large gold-plated trophy out of nowhere, rubbing it affectionately. "...and it's all because of all your customizations on this beauty!"  
  
Iggy could be seen flying off into the horizon a moment later, disappearing with a twinkle. Troy huffed and wheezed as he brought the CHRONICLE down from its home-run swing. Sighing he walked up to the machine, rubbing one of the metal shafts that made up the frame of the kart. "...there you go, baby, no more scary people sitting in you..." his eyes floated to the back, where a large crate sat on the back supports of the cart. "...huh?" slowly he wrapped his arms around it, lowering it to the ground. He glanced back to the king, nodding before prying the top off with the keyblade.  
  
--------  
  
Hey. Nice work back there. I didn't want to make a big fuss over you, you know, make my own reputation go to waste and everything. If it didn't sound like it before, you're always welcome at Last Chance Rampart. Think about coming back sometime, eh? I hope those guys over at the Mushroom Kingdom aren't working you too hard... you know firsthand they drive a hard bargain against anything even I suggest! Some big dopes running the place... but money's money... either way, give the koopas something to be proud of, you know, you gotta be the biggest ambassadoass.. or something, that we've got over there, so keep on truckin'...  
  
Some of the troops insisted this was yours... ain't right to take someone else's gear for granted, I'm not sure if the brats can get that through their thick skulls but this should be arriving at the Kingdom palace soon in Iggy's care. Whatever...  
  
Anyways, I thought this would match the kart, so, hey, I threw it in... take good care of it.  
  
-Lord Bowser  
  
--------  
  
Troy tucked the note back in the box, tossing away the styrofoam layer inside. He blinked, hoisting out a bright, shining red shell - with not scales, but sealed, tempered hexagonal plates sheeting the back. Troy recognized it on sight - it was a heavy-class soldier shell. "...uh... wow?" his grin spread a mile wide as he held it above his head, quickly shimmying into it and letting it fall into place. He pounded on its front with his fist, receiving a satisfying clunk in response - his new armor was greatly denser than his generic, used carapace, bought on limited coinage prior to his service at Last Chance Rampart. He locked it into place, striding forward and leaping into the kart. "...uh, hey, do you mind if I park this out back?"  
  
"...uh.. sure?"  
  
Troy nodded, revving the engine. The kart suddenly took off, speeding around the other side of the fort.  
  
Wooster walked out, raising an eyebrow. "...is that not the direction of the royal gardens?"  
  
The king sighed. "Oh dear."  
  
********  
  
Selphie keeled over, wheezing as she crested the last flight of stairs. She grabbed onto the banister, pulling herself up again - why Sirius would want to make residence in the castle's observatory, a respectable distance from solid ground, she'd probably never understand. What she did comprehend, however, was the means of getting up there - one twenty-minute-long stair climb. She slumped over to the large wooden door, ready to deliver a solid pound to it - but stopped, leaning up against the stone wall. "...hm.. how am I going to introduce myself... I wouldn't want to barge in on if he's doing something important."  
  
She jumped as a voice called out from within. "Yes?"  
  
"..oh, uh, er, well... uh, yeah, this is Selphie! I just wanted to talk to you for a moment..."  
  
Selphie waited for a moment. Eventually a response came in the same dull tone. "...come in." she reached over, slowly opening the door, thus prolonging the agonizing creak it made in the process. Selphie leapt in, quickly slamming the door shut. Sirius was, as usual, hunched over his desk, an enormous stack of books blocking out most of the moonlight.  
  
She folded her hands behind her head as she walked up. "...how do you READ like this?" she reached over, taking one of the towers of books and setting it on the ground. Almost immediately the room started to fill with cool blue light.  
  
"I'm still not used to light." Sirius replied. "...I want to apologize again for earl-"  
  
"Alright, alright." Selphie sighed. "Yeah, I know I can get a bit annoying."  
  
Sirius blinked. "...well.. yes. Anyways, what did you come all the way up here for?"  
  
"You heard what Luigi and Toad were talking about earlier, how they found me in that swamp and everything. Well... the truth is, I really don't belong here... if everything that's been happening lately is true and what I heard about the Vast is right and everything, well... what I'm trying to say is.. I don't know where I am. Sorry, I don't make a whole lot of sense..."  
  
"You just appeared in this world, correct? And you have previously encountered the Vast?"  
  
"See, I don't know, I was just hoping I could come up here and talk to the great sage Sirius and everything would be all fine and dandy and I'd know perfectly what happened to my world, and..." she could see Sirius' eyes becoming clearer as he swiveled in his chair to face her. "...did... I say something wrong?"  
  
Sirius bowed his head, letting it sway. "...those fools.. I don't think they will ever understand the danger their world is in... like they can just prance in the streets and announce that their world is under attack for all of the world to hear... as you might imagine, the Vast is a very dangerous thing. Still, I do not know if this applies to you. Please, tell me everything that happened prior to your arrival at the Halfwhy Marshes."  
  
Another half-hour passed as Selphie spent the next half-hour relaying everything that had happened to her to Sirius. She kept switching position, never finding any stance in the cramped study comfortable for more than two minutes - by the end of her speech it had turned into a half-charade. Still, Sirius watched intently, absorbing everything Selphie said. Eventually Selphie collapsed in the recliner opposite of him, staring at him with tired eyes. "...and, well.. that's it. I just woke up here, in this world, and I have no idea how I actually got here, or how I would get back home."  
  
Sirius frowned. "...could you explain to me what these little... imps.. looked like?"  
  
"The Vast took on a different form... it just looked like a bunch of little guys running around, none of them hurt me or bothered to attack me, they just tried to SWARM... by the time I'd caught up with Sora the beach was pretty much a sea of this black stuff..."  
  
Sirius flinched. "...black?"  
  
"...yeah, black."  
  
"...are you sure it wasn't purple?"  
  
Selphie shook her head. "Black. I remember it as clear as day. Blacker than black. Than black."  
  
Sirius leant back in his chair. "...well, then I find that most peculiar. While your situation does sound like many encounters with Vast I've had in the past, there's enough discrepancy in your explanation for me to be unable to confirm whether or not you were dealing with Vast. Are you telling the truth?"  
  
"Do I have a reason not to?"  
  
"...anyways... I guess we can leave that argument until later... now, onto the details of you losing contact with your world, you watched a friend of yours combat this blackness before being raised into the sky... and you were deposited in a vortex. Am I correct?"  
  
Selphie nodded. "Yeah."  
  
Sirius folded his hands. "...alright. Do not be alarmed by what I tell you. You witnessed first hand the usual symptoms of a world being destroyed. Likely, either under the attack by this darkness or by sheer circumstance, the dimensional fabric holding your world apart was torn asunder. However, you have experienced what I like to call the assured destruction failsafe, and that is what had attempted to draw people into the vortex as well - that is what cast you off to this world, saving you from instant death. Likewise, many of the people you know would have likely been thrown into the void as well. Parents, friends, everyone you know is scattered amongst the worlds. If what you say is true and your friend Sora obtained a keyblade, I can definately guarantee that everyone is alright."  
  
"...so..." Selphie slouched back in the chair. "...that takes a load off my shoulders and everything... but.. Sirius, if everyone is completely spread across the cosmos and everything, will I... see them? Again?"  
  
"Of course. As keyblades are drawn to each other, hearts follow suit. And if you don't currently have one.. another will be your guiding light."  
  
"So, I can just visit other worlds and try to find them! Right?" Selphie jumped up, fists clenched.  
  
Sirius stared sadly at Selphie, eventually heaving a sigh. "...alright, getting between worlds isn't terribly complicated... but as it stands, I'm in no position to help you... it is my primary concern to make sure that this world continues to contain the Vast. Selphie, this is the farthest I've come in purifying a world, and I don't want to waste that chance. I'm sorry if I sound selfish, but I'm doing this for the better of this world..." he glanced back up, staring into Selphie's dull eyes. Turning away again he breathed out a groan. "...we'll leave this world soon enough. But right now we have the Vast to take care of, alright? Just... for the time being, try to live the best you can in the Mushroom Kingdom, okay? We'll have things cleaned up here soon enough..."  
  
Selphie frowned for a moment, before suddenly transforming back into her usual self. "...'kay, I can do that! I'm sure I'll have enough fun with you guys until I get ready to head out into the multiverse or whatnot... well, I guess I'd be best hitting the sack, I'll see you and the guys tomorrow, alright?"  
  
Sirius waved weakly as he watched Selphie skip back out the door, slamming it tight behind her. He could only watch that door, closing, closing, before it finally shut - just as his dreams upon other worlds had earlier. Turning back to the desk, he stared out through the gap exposing the window that Selphie had created.  
  
He stared out over the rapidly dimming skyline of Toad Town. All at once it saddened him. "...contain the Vast... what could possibly contain the Vast... how much longer do I have before its true wrath visits this world... how could it not pass up a chance like this..."   
  
He glanced up at the sky, watching as more green bolts of energy cascaded down to the horizon. "...this world... is too perfect.. too easy to corrupt... and soon, more will exert their influence on this fragile balance..."  
  
"Troy, Peach... I hope for the Star Road's sake you know what you're doing..."  
  
********  
  
TO BE CONTINUED  
  
NSX: Ntropy  
  
Chapter 4 - Black Gold, Black Day 


	4. Blacker

Rain continued to pound at the ground along the barren plateau, even in the middle of the night. Large pools of water had already formed deep within the basin, threatening to engulf whatever small amount of wildlife remained at the site. It was a stark contrast to the rising sun that usually baked the rock and dirt dry. Still, as the rain ever so unconsciously mentioned, things still lived there. Whether they were prosperous was another matter altogether. A pair of small feet hit the dirt one after another, working up a steep hill and down, navigating the nearly impossible terrain.  
  
"...drat.. DRAT!" Fawful bunched up his bright red cloak, making sure none of the big splashes he created soaked him any more than they needed to. "What timeframe for dire things to occur to such planned happenings! Trouble will happen definately!"  
  
He darted around another rock, speeding up as his destination appeared. Dug deep into the side of a rock mound was a large, metal-plated bunker. However, entrances were also visible at various other spots around the large cliff - the compound was much bigger than anyone would have figured looking at it. He zipped up to the door, pounding on it with one fist. "I SAY OPEN!" On cue the heavy iron door zipped upwards with a loud grind, allowing him entrance. While the corridor that he darted down was bunker-like in apperance, with various stores of food and weaponry in subcompartments, he soon found himself at a large, suede-covered door. He coughed, pushing it open.  
  
A group of shadows were seated at a table in the middle of the lounge, playing cards. Everyone froze as they stared at Fawful. All at once the chairs slid back, but only the person at the table's helm stood - a hulking, built frame. "...well... how did it go?"  
  
"Unsatisfactory to the greatest extent! I have set my retinas of my eyes on the CHRONICLE Keyper! I have belief that associated finkrats and he defend it with high vigor and force, and the royal family helps in with such complicated problems!"  
  
The headmaster glanced through the group. "...so it is in Toad Town then."  
  
"Was when I last appeared such in the place of the royalty, yes."  
  
"Forget that for now." another figure stood, wrapped in a flowing coat. An outline of wispy hair was visible around his head. "...did you get the other keyblade?"  
  
"No luck such. Stubborn people of stupidity fended me off with grace."  
  
He fell back in his chair, grumbling to himself. The leader glared at him before turning back to Fawful. "...no matter. We have the whereabouts of CHRONICLE... that is really all we need for the time being. And... seeing as how it's confirmed that the weapon lies in the hands of a resident of this world, we have a better idea of what to expect from the Keyper in question."  
  
"But what about the other keyblade?" the coated man hissed.  
  
"We'll GET the other keyblades in due time. Right now the CHRONICLE is our target. It is more powerful than the others in ways that only I can comprehend. So just SIT your ass down and wait, you'll get one to rape and pillage with soon enough." he turned back to Fawful. "Anyways, excellent work. Now, we must focus on what the Keyper intends to do with the keyblade, and possibly head him off. It has been destroying the darkness, so we call it... so, the person who holds it is indeed using it for pure purposes. Which makes it that much easier to track him..."  
  
A slender woman leant forward, noisily chewing gum. "And, like, what do you mean by that?"  
  
"The darkness will come to him, or he will come to the darkness. And thanks to our friend's sentry drones..." he gestured to a large, round boy across the table. "...we have pinpointed a particularly large growth of it in the Koopahari desert region closest to the Dark Lands. As I understand it a local regime frequents the area to extract raw sludge oil from it. I'm not sure why exactly it's heading there, but I know for a fact it's too big for any half-witted Keyper NOT to notice."  
  
"So..." the fat boy laughed. "...what's the game plan?"  
  
"We cannot be sure of the Keyper's power yet. One of you will patrol the Koopahari oilsands should this Keyper come to investigate. We will attack and capture the CHRONICLE by all means necessary. The rest of you will stay here for the time being - there's no telling when another outbreak will occur, and you may be needed there. You..." he pointed at the coated man. "...will go to the oilsands. The rest of us will remain here, to deploy to another outbreak should one occur. I and those not on duty here will guard the keyblade we have."  
  
Everyone nodded, leaving the table and dashing into the recesses of the fortress to return to their previous duties, or in the case of the draped man, prepare for his shift outside. The hulking shadow sat back down, folding his arms as another sleek, slim man stepped out from the darkness. His skin was pale, and even with the lack of light, it was noticably a purple shade. His eyes were blindfolded with a black bandana, but he still moved with grace as he advanced. "...and.. what about me?"  
  
"Remain here. I will help you find who you are looking for... but at the moment we have more pressing matters to attend to. Have patience."  
  
He let out a low snarl, slinking back into the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder. "...about your tone... let it be known that you are not yet my master."  
  
The leader stared back solemnly as the shadows blended back around the man.  
  
--------  
  
NSX  
  
Chapter 4: Blacker  
  
--------  
  
"Hm, hm, hm-hm hm hm, hm-hm hm hm HM hm, hm..."  
  
The palace corridors were sheeted with a pale shade of blue, eerie light floating in through the windows as Peach trudged by carrying a large sack over her shoulder - and the loose keyblade in her free hand. Slowing down she glanced down at her watch. In her regal life she couldn't remember ever being up at 3 in the morning - rulers need their rest, early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise, she'd been bombarded by comments in the same vein as long as she could remember. She could only help but think, though, how much longer that would go on with the steps she was beginning to take. She rounded the next corner, slowly opening the cage-like doors that led back out into the courtyards.  
  
Already she could hear the familiar putter of a low-cc engine in the distance, and picked up her pace. She was ready to exit the grounds through the hedges ahead before noticing Luigi slumped down against the side of the fountain. She sighed, walking up to him. "Sorry."  
  
"Sorry what?" Luigi glanced up, visibly surprised to see the princess - or, moreso the princess ready to bash his head in with the sack's contents. He shrieked as he rolled out of the way, the bag hitting the rim of the fountain with a dull clunk. "...ARE YOU CRAZY?!"  
  
"I can't have anyone notifying the officials of my trip..." Peach said flatly.  
  
"Hey, hey, that's none of my business, whatever's not my responsibility, I stay out of, right? Never figured you were gonna sit tight while Troy and company were all running around the Kingdom. But that's besides the point."  
  
"Then... why ARE you out here, exactly?"  
  
"Can't I just sit somewhere and THINK once in a while?" Luigi grumbled, parking himself back on the fountain. He rested his chin on his palms, sighing.  
  
"And what would you be thinking about at this time of night?"  
  
Luigi slumped forward, sighing again. Shaking his head he glanced back up at Peach. "...I'm worried, princess. Everything that's been going on lately, people getting flung every which way across the multiverse, random people with keyblades running amok around here... Mario's not that concerned about it... well, that's him for you... he's the one with the namesake to live up to... there's not much that can discourage him, really. I... on the other hand... just look around you. While he's out fighting the good fight in his scout duty, what do I have on my mind? This entire dimensional travel thing seems more random every time I think about it. Don't get me wrong, I think you guys are all fine, but... how are we going to get home?"  
  
Peach nodded. "You'll find a way, I'm sure of it."  
  
"Leave it to Mario," Luigi stood up, dusting himself off. "...how am I supposed to find a way? I'm telling you... everything's been turned upside down by these cross-dimension expeditions that everyone's running off on. Bro'll pull some miracle out of his hat... but, I'm... I'm just confused."  
  
Peach seated herself, smirking as she leant forward. "Inferiority complex?"  
  
"You could call it that." Luigi sulked.  
  
Peach sighed, facing back forward before regaining her smile. "...why don't you come with us?"  
  
"...with who?" Luigi suddenly glanced back.  
  
"Troy and I. We're heading out to the Koopahari oilsands to check out that disturbance at the Koopa sludge plant. We could always use a hand, and best of all..." she waved her arm in a disappearing-act manner. "...no Mario."  
  
Luigi stammered. "...y-you sure? Isn't Sirius a bit ornery about that still?..."  
  
"We're still the authority in the Mushroom Kingdom... don't let him get to you... I know he's got wisdom about the Vast, but... I still get a weird vibe from him. Kind of like he's actually too experienced for his own good..."  
  
"That doesn't mean I want to mess with him."  
  
"Just come with us, you dork."  
  
Luigi paused for a moment, eventually throwing up his arms in defeat. "Fine, fine. How long is this trip gonna last? I'm not going to be up to my eyeballs in Vast or interdimensional invaders, am I? How are we even getting there?"  
  
"Troy's giving me a ride. I don't think he has any more room, but I bet Toad would be willing to lend his out for a bit." Peach walked across the small yard, Luigi following at a reasonable distance. As they reached the end and walked through the small archway that cut through the thick hedge wall, they came upon a wide, paved path that wound around the castle's wall, eventually leading up to the main doors of the palace a distance away. The road twisted again afterwards, leading out of the castle grounds. No sooner did the two set foot on the road, Troy's bright red kart rolled up, a small sidecar latched onto the side. Peach nodded, smiling. "Well, Troy, you ready?"  
  
Troy's head slowly twisted to the side, showing a pair of tired eyes. "...uhh.. yeah. I just... took a minute to get the sidecar set up... that's all... say, why do we gotta leave so early anyways...? Oh... Sirius, right..." he rubbed the back of his shell as Luigi examined the sidecar.  
  
"Duct tape?" Luigi said flatly, poking at the struts supporting it.  
  
"..I-it'll hold, I'm sure..." Peach shoved him out of the way. "...uh, Troy, are you sure you should be driving like that? Maybe I should..."  
  
"You drive?" Luigi asked. Peach glared at him. "...right, I know better than to talk about a woman's driving.. uh, I mean..."  
  
"Forget it. Troy, you take the sidecar, I'll take the wheel." Troy's hand was already raising the CHRONICLE jutting out next to his seat, but he collapsed halfway through, quickly beginning to snore. Peach sighed, lifting Troy out of the driver's seat and tossing him into the sidecar. She wrapped her hands around the wheel, glancing back at Luigi. "Oh... Luigi. I almost forgot."  
  
Peach put the vehicle into reverse, backing into a sideroad and bashing the back end of the kart into the sliding door of a small shack. With a loud rattle the door flew upwards and back, exposing Toad as he vigorously rubbed at a blue-framed kart similar to Troy's. He glanced up, reeling back as he noticed the three. "..AIIEE! P-Princess?!"  
  
"I hereby demand as a member of the royal family of the Mushroom Kingdom that you give up your kart for Luigi." Peach quickly blurted out, glancing over her shoulder.  
  
"You've never been good at those regal commands." Toad remarked. "...but... do you gotta take it? I was just about done fixing up the scrapes I got from the Dark Land tourney, too... okay, you're going to be the only person that's gonna hear that I was out there to begin with, alright? I had to miss two days of work, just to get the bronze..."  
  
"I'm guessing THAT was your two-day cold? Well.. okay, I'll keep my mouth shut if you lend us your kart for the time being. We just need one more ride to the Koopahari oilsands."  
  
"I never figured you'd listen to Sirius. Well, a regal command's a regal command... 'kay, Luigi, for future reference, if I find a scrape on this in a day or whenever you people are done with the investigation, I own your soul. Have a nice day." Toad pressed himself off the cool blue frame, darting around to the rear of the kart and pushing it out onto the pavement. Luigi grabbed the back of the seat, taking it from Toad's control. He stared at it for a moment, blinking before turning back to Peach.  
  
"Well?" Peach revved the engine. "...let's roll."  
  
Luigi climbed into the small kart (hunching up a bit as it was obviously small for him), and twisted the ignition. As the red kart ahead of him slowly began to roll away, Luigi pressed down on the gas, keeping close behind. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to move up alongside the princess. "...calm down... this is just a little buisness outing, that's all... if anything happens Troy can take of it."  
  
He found himself sighing as he rolled out of the castle gates. The lack of a nearby Mario didn't appear to be changing anything. What was he getting himself into? Why did he even bother coming with Troy? He obviously wouldn't be able to do anything... again Sirius' remark about the Keyless being Vast fodder ate at him. Taking a deep breath, he began to pull alongside of Peach and Troy. "...I want to be able to take care of myself. Once. Please."  
  
Peach gave him another warm glance, which he returned with a nod.  
  
"...please..."  
  
--------  
  
"Weegi!..." Mario jogged down the carpeted corridor, checking every nook and cranny he came across for any sign of his brother. Hallways, rooms, rooms in rooms, rooms in rooms in rooms, he found no sign of anyone anywhere. Soon he had absentmindedly resorted to checking behind hanging pictures, in vases and underneath tables. After he'd woken up, by the time he made it out to the main hall he had easily spent an hour poking around the castle for any sign of the group he had associated himself with the night before. As he entered the hall, he grinned, noticing Sirius standing at the far entrance of the chamber with his arms crossed. He was busy talking to a handful of guards. "...hey! Sirius! Where is everyone?"  
  
Sirius suddenly went silent, glancing over his shoulder. "...enjoying themselves, obviously. If no one wants to stay around the castle to pertain to their duty, then there's nothing I can do. No studying for me today, either, if I have to watch over and assist the guards should the Vast or any Keypers attempt to gain entrance to Toad Town." Mario caught the hiss that accompanied the end of his statement.  
  
"Well, I'm always around." Mario gave a mock salute. "What's on the menu? Did you find any more Keypers coming down? Or keyblades? I'm ready for duty, just tell me where you want me to be-"  
  
"No." Sirius droned. Mario blinked, letting his arm drop back to his side. "...do not bother. We cannot safely search for keyblades without one. And seeing as how Peach took the other one when she went out to the Koopahari oilsands with Troy and your brother, we're in no position to be doing ANYTHING."  
  
"Peach? And Luigi?" Mario staggered. "Shouldn't we stop them?"  
  
Sirius paused again, his eyes narrowing as he twisted his torso. "...let them find the error of their ways. If the koopas are correct, they'll soon see their futility. Don't take that the wrong way, now... Troy's there. He'll keep an eye on them." he turned, walking by Mario - who instead whirled around to again face Sirius' back.  
  
"What, one moment you're trashing Troy and the next you're putting the crowd's fate in his hands?"  
  
"Quite frankly..." Sirius said sternly. "He has a better chance than those two ever will." with that, he turned back, walking back the way that he had came.  
  
Mario still seethed as the door shut with a slam.  
  
--------  
  
"NOT AGAIN!!" the Troopa lurched forward, sending his cup of coffee flying as he stared with wide eyes at the video monitor. He fell off his rolling chair as he tried to manuver it closer to the wall, quickly springing back to his feet, and slamming the large red button in with his fist. He grabbed the phone next to it off the wall, yelling into it. "ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE! VAST HAS BEEN DETECTED IN SLUDGE CHAMBER B-13! I REPEAT, ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE!"  
  
Troopas began to pour from every visible entrance on the painted hill like a swarm of ants. Those on the lower levels of the sludge borehole had a little more of a fight on their hands.  
  
"We just had a drill last night." one yellow-shelled koopa beat on the work elevator gate with his fist as a goomba hauling a cart full of dirt watched. He watched as the car shot straight upwards, tilting his helmet as he continued to grumble. "What the crap is this stupid Vost thingy anyways? You think they'd put these things in the worker's manual." The goomba nodded. "...well, I guess we'd better try the stairwell." the goomba dropped his load and headed off. The worker Troopa was about to follow suit until he glanced over his shoulder - a short distance away a Birdo was busy fighting off the purple sludge with a wide broom as it continued to cover the floor of the hallway.   
  
He continued to stare, bewildered as a tidal wave of it crashed around the corner.  
  
Outside, a Paratroopa continued to rush the workers along in a straight line as they exited the compound. "MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! WE DON'T GOT ALL FRIGGIN' DAY HERE!!" he glanced over, checking the huge cluster of workers as they gathered a safe distance away from the rig - which even he knew was less than had entered to begin with. As the huge crowd continued to panic, a bald man with white hair jutting out backwards to both sides stood on top of a mesa a short distance away, wrapped in a large lab coat.  
  
"...just as I figured. The Darkness came to this spot... and no one's prepared to do anything about it. Pity." he folded his arms, closing his eyes as a massive robot crashed down beside him, kneeling - even then being twice as tall as its owner. It was fitted in a massive, reinforced marroon suit of armor, with alternating black and yellow composite stretching over the rest of its body, making the implanted muscle and machinery beneath it visible. It wore a large hardhat, with a black band winding around its base and a red gem on the front. "...well... how goes things?"  
  
"Just as you figuhed. The turtles are goin' berserk down there wit' the darkness showing up everywhere an' stuff. Further instructions, master?"  
  
"...well, I suppose all we can do now is wait for the Keyper and his cronies to show up. Gutsman, return to the rig grounds. Try not to be seen... if, that is possible. We want the chaos here to be at its peak when the CHRONICLE arrives." he nodded as he watched the massive cyborg hunched down, suddenly leaping from the platform of earth.  
  
It was hard not to notice the large plate reading "W" on his back.  
  
A distance off, a pair of karts continued to tear through the sandy offroad, kicking up a massive cloud of dust behind them. Troy still rode shotgun, slumped over the edge of his sidecar in a halfasleep stupor. Peach still sat at the wheel aware as ever. Luigi, meanwhile, hadn't slid forward or behind her for the past several hours.  
  
"So what's going on between you and your brother?" Peach tried to say over the buzzing engines. "...you like to talk as if you're a LONG way behind him in regards to impulse and stuff."  
  
"We get a lot of business... Brooklyn being leaky faucet capital of the world and everything... I agreed when he himself suggested we put our family trait of wrench-twisting to work... I guess him making the proposition and not me that we start a plumbing service is the beginning of things... I just feel so behind him when it comes to leadership, and just general functionality... Mario and Luigi, we need you to change our main valve. Mario and Luigi, we need you to operate this plunger because we're idiots, etc. etc. Why'd we have to make our official title Mario and Luigi, anyways? Everyone just uses Mario for shorthand anyways, people wonder who the hell I am when I show up with the M-cap-guy scribbled in the yellow pages ad... well, I guess it's for the better..."  
  
"And why would that be?"  
  
"I'm not ready, I'm not willing to go, I'm not presentable."  
  
"What's holding you back then?"  
  
Luigi buried his face in his hands, suddenly remembering to put them back on the wheel. "I told you, working with a partner for so long, you start to realize how little you can accomplish on your own... but when I saw Mario taking this entire situation with grace, I guess that was the last nail in my coffin..."  
  
"We'll give you all the spotlight you need. From the sounds of things you're gonna be here a while anyways. Who knows, if the situation with the Vast gets bad enough you'll wind up with your own keyblade down the road. Lookit Troy here, some shrimpy little Troopa who's shown more valor than most of his bretheren ever will, armed with a keyblade and ready to defend those in need. Maybe that's the little confidence boost you need."  
  
"I heard that." Troy slurred.  
  
"I assume it's right now Sirius says something that cuts me to pieces." Luigi sighed.  
  
"I wouldn't be surprised. Hey, Troy, how much longer do we have to keep heading in this direction?"  
  
Troy grumbled, leaning over and digging through the compartment beneath him. He removed a small pamphlet, unfolding it until it completely cut off his view as he held it out in front of him. "...probably another five minutes."  
  
"Five minutes too many, apparently." Peach mumbled.  
  
"Wha?" Troy and Luigi looked up, their eyes fixing on the same target as Peach's - off in the distance, a massive geyser of purple ooze could be seen flowering from the top of a mesa. On cue, both karts nearly tripled in speed, quickly beginning to bear down on the sludge plant. "...uh, 'kay, we're all fine with one minute?"  
  
One minute did pass, actually, before the two vehicles power-slid to a stop a distance away from the facility, sending Troy flying out of the sidecar and facefirst into the dirt as Peach and Luigi quickly made their way over to the rapidly growing crowd of workers waiting outside. Troy quickly climbed back to his feet, taking up the rear as the two pierced into the crowd.  
  
"What's going on here?" Peach shouted.  
  
A paratroopa burst out from the other side of the gap in the crowd that the princess had created. "Alright, I'm the warren here, if you have any questions, I'll answer th... Princess Toadstool?! Listen, we'll GET your sludge soon enough, right now we have a bit of a PROBLEM on our hands!"  
  
"You WANTED Troy, so here you go!" Luigi shoved Troy forward, causing him to stumble a bit. He was surprised to find the entire crowd give a victorious roar in response.  
  
"It's Troy Kiemen from 99th brigade!" the warren shouted to the gaggle. "...the super koopa lord Bowser spoke of! We're saved!"  
  
"Uh, yeah, spiffy, whatever." Troy mumbled. "Uh, but you guys never said what was going on here..."  
  
"We must've hit a nice deposit of it or something, 'cause, well, you know." he gestured out to the massive fountain of the the substance. "...I'm not so much concerned about our foundation here as I am for the workers that are still inside... I'm just hoping the place hasn't been flooded yet with that crap."  
  
Troy was already fighting through the crowd, slowly getting to the main shaft entrance. Images of what damage it had done to Bowser were already beginning to creep back into his mind. "Just tell me where and I'll dig 'em out!" he slowed down as he heard the warren talk again.  
  
"We've shut down all the lower levels so you shouldn't have to head in deep. I hate to think of what kind of situation we'd be in right now if we hadn't..." his eyes crept to the open corridor leading into the mountain, from where a trickle of the dark ooze had already begun to seep along the ground. Troy moved straight into it, the substance seeming to shrink away from his feet as they hit the ground. Peach and Luigi watched as he disappeared from sight.  
  
"NOW what do we do?" Peach grumbled.  
  
"You're not thinking of going in there, are you? From the looks of things that place is absolutely soaked in Vast - not the best place to try out a keyblade, I'm thinking." Luigi folded his arms.  
  
"How right you would be." a voice boomed.  
  
"Huh?" Troy spun around as the metal cage door slid shut with a loud clank behind him. He ran back up to it, shaking it with one hand as the warren stared on, blinking.  
  
"Get that door open!" he barked.  
  
Several Troopas were already at a control panel nearby, beating on the buttons. "We can't, sir! The console is reversing any commands we send to the security system! Almost like someone else's controlling it remotely!"  
  
"Now how would someone do THAT? We don't even have phone access out here! You IDIOTS, let me do this..." the warren shoved his way to the front, swiping a key from within his shell and slapping it into a gap marked EMERGENCY FAILSAFE. He twisted it a few times, glancing back up to the door. Nothing had changed.  
  
"Uh.. heh..." Troy chuckled nervously. "...you just get that patched up quickly, 'kay? I'll be back in a bit... but it'd be nice to be able to get out of here eventually."  
  
"I imagine."  
  
Everyone turned back to the direction of the voice in time to see the massive cyborg plummet out of the sky. It landed with an enormous crash, hunching down and letting its passenger off its shoulder. The slim man hopped to the ground, folding his arms behind his back as he took a bold step forward. "...why the long faces? I assure you, your technical problem can be solved easily enough..." he lifted up his sleeve, exposing a blinking wrist computer.  
  
"You're!..." the warren growled.  
  
"Such primitive devices..." he shook his head. "...you saw yourselves... it took me mere seconds to destroy what you call a security system and bring it under my command. And now the brave little Keyper enters the mine not knowing how little the failsafes in there will work to his benefit. Such a sad state of affairs."  
  
Peach's face went pale.  
  
"Oh, what is with all this chatter... I haven't even introduced myself. Who stands before you but I, the great Wily, and just one of my many creations... the goliath Gutsman. Now, I like many others wouldn't mind setting my hand on the CHRONICLE - so I'd like to make a little deal - hand over the keyblade, and I'll be happy to spare his life AND all of yours'. Is or is that not the sweetest little bargain you reptiles set your beady little eyes on? Hm? Either way I think it'd be best if you made your minds up quickly... my friend here isn't particularly fond of negotiation."  
  
Luigi staggered. "...NOW what do we do? It doesn't look like we're going to get this guy off our backs soon enough..."  
  
"Can't we just trounce the guy controlling him?" Peach asked. She was promptly answered as Gutsman leapt high into the air, landing directly in front of the two, in the process sending the two flying off their feet. Peach was the second to pull herself back to her feet, dusting herself off. "Well, that was uncalled for."  
  
"Grr..." Troy rattled the bars.  
  
"Troy, forget about us, just get in there and get people out of the mines! We'll worry about this bucket of bolts..." Peach lifted up the keyblade, pointing it at the robot golem. Troy glanced between the two, frowning. Eventually he began to back away, darting off into the darkness ahead.   
  
"Well, I'll be." Wily mumbled. "Another keyblade, stuck in inferior hands... ready for me to scoop up like candy from a baby. Maybe I would've shown mercy before, but I think this is too good a situation to pass up. GUTSMAN! Crush the girl!"  
  
"Spiffy." Luigi huffed.  
  
"Righto." the robot let out a dull grunt again, stomping towards Peach and lifting up its massive hands to deliver a crushing haymaker to the target below. She let out a yelp as she dove away, the massive force guiding the heavily-armored hands to the ground, smashing it to pieces.  
  
"What's wrong?!" Wily cackled. "Don't tell me you can't even USE the thing! This is ridiculous!"  
  
Luigi stood frozen as Peach leapt clear of another blow that tore apart a nearby transmission pipe. The nearby Troopas let out screeches as they quickly began to notice exactly how powerful the mechanized behemoth in front of them really was.  
  
"Foolish... it really isn't that kind of you to be holding someone's keyblade from its rightful owner..."  
  
Peach stumbled back to her feet, still dragging the dulled keyblade with her. "...right."  
  
"No, I mean it! Don't you feel it? If that were your rightful keyblade would it not have shown its true form by now? Don't tell me you're wielding that out of your own free will!"  
  
"What do YOU know about these things? If anyone has any working knowledge it should be the royal figures!" the warden growled.  
  
"More than you, I'm afraid. Though... a royal figure, you say? I'm under the assumption you're NOT some kind of reptile, so you would be... what's the name... Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom? Ah, yes, I've heard a lot about the place... yes... I guess that just confirms our analysis of this world... if you of all people can't hold a candle to me, this domain will fall to us sooner than I expected... brilliant!"  
  
"Who are you people?" Luigi gaped.  
  
"I think you'll find out soon enough... well, maybe not you, I mean, you're all gonna be pound as fine as this sand here in a moment, but you get the picture... GO! GUTSMAN! LET'S GET THIS OVER WITH ALREADY!!" Wily stabbed his finger forward, causing Gutsman to slam his fist into the ground again. Peach had little time to dodge, this time being thrown hard into what remained of the transmission pipe. She let out a dull groan as she landed face-down in the dirt, the keyblade flung high into the air. Luigi let out a shriek as he dove forward for the device, as did Gutsman and the warden.  
  
"Heya, you wanna get crushed or what?!" Gutsman bellowed.  
  
The keyblade continued to spin through the air, slowly beginning to fall again. Gutsman was much taller than Luigi, but his massive hands weren't exactly built for handling three-foot-long strips of metal. Knowing that Gutsman would take longer to lumber over to the weapon's position in the air, Luigi continued to sprint with his hands held high as the keyblade quickly sped down towards him. What he hadn't counted on, however, was Gutsman making a last-ditch dive without his master's approval.  
  
Luigi screeched to a halt as he was quickly eclipsed. Glancing up he realized the grim truth. The multi-ton metal golem was coming down. Hard.  
  
"AAACCKK!!" the warden spasmed, waving his arms. "GET OUTTA THERE!!"  
  
Gutsman glanced up, seeing the keyblade finally fall into his hands. Or, more precisely, directly between them.  
  
"GAME OVER!!" Wily yelled, pointing a wavering finger. Luigi let out a barely-audible squeak as Gutsman finally hit ground zero - all the Troopas shielded their eyes as a massive crash echoed out across the wastes, followed by a massive rush of unearthed sand. The workers rubbed the dust out of their eyes as quickly as possible, awaiting the aftermath. Gutsman remained facedown in the dirt, seeming to relish the moment. "...HAH! HAHAH!!" Wily jumped up and down, continuing to point at the downed robot. "...guess the first catch didn't particularly matter... we'll just have to fetch the keyblade from your remains, or, dare we say, pudding!"  
  
"What a riot." Gutsman extended his limbs, slowly beginning to pry himself off the ground in a push-up motion.  
  
"Lui-gi..." Peach waved her arm before sulking back into the sand.  
  
"Can you see him?" the warren barked.  
  
"Gutsman, get the keyblade." Wily ordered, folding his arms triumphantly.  
  
"No... way..." Peach flopped back down, unconscious.  
  
"Uh... Toadstool? Toadstool? I... think I see someth... oh." the warren prodded Peach's limp body.  
  
"Found it." Gutsman hunched down lower for a minute.  
  
"Then bring it." Wily grumbled.  
  
"'kay, whatever you s-RRRHGHGHGHHHAAAHAH!!!" All at once Gutsman seized up, rattling as purple energy arced across its body. The electric pulse suddenly ended, causing smoky fumes to erupt from the robot. Wily stared at it, blinking for a moment. He began to walk back towards his creation - suddenly being thrown back as its back completely exploded, a steady column of electricity suddenly slicing through the heavy robot like butter. With one pained groan, Gutsman was hurled away, landing with another crash nearby. "...w-what?!"  
  
"...uhh... what just... happened there?" Luigi glanced around, one hand scratching the back of his head, the other unwittingly holding up the keyblade. He glanced up at, suddenly stumbling back as he noticed the artifact glowing with an unearthly blue light. Its appearance itself had changed - the handgrip had changed to a pair of dark batwings, with a circle bored out in the center where he held onto the shaft of the weapon - which itself was sending off the ominous glow. The teeth no longer had a set pattern, now replaced by jagged blades of dulled metal. "...I.. uh... er.."  
  
========  
  
ALASTOR  
  
--------  
  
Strength 100%  
  
Lightningstrike  
  
????  
  
????  
  
--------  
  
Said by many to be the reborn form of a demonhunter's weapon from ages past. It carries an immensely powerful electric charge on it that is rumored to be eternal in its master's hands. As was presumably required in its last user's experience with it, the weapon itself is extremely powerful physically, and also carries many other arcane enchantments to suit the situation... some of which have never truly been accessed fully...  
  
========  
  
"...ridculous!!" Wily sputtered. "...Gutsman! No holds barred!! Get that keyblade out of his hands before anything else goes wrong!!" he continued to glance around, biting his nails as the robot slowly began to crawl upwards, its emergency power systems firing up. Meanwhile, all around, the Troopas gathered, staring in awe at the superweapon in Luigi's grip.  
  
"...did I do... something?" Luigi looked around, jumping at the sight of the flayed Gutsman. "...uh.. I... holy.. crap?!"  
  
The warden cupped his hands to his mouth. "USE IT, YOU MORON!"  
  
"What?! Me?!"  
  
"I've got a BONE TO PICK WIT' YA!!" Gutsman's components let out a screech as the machine drug itself into the air, ejecting its fists. Both monoliths of metal screamed down towards Luigi, who let out a shriek as he leapt backwards - he was launched violently backwards as both fists crashed harmlessly into the ground. All at once his mind was flooded with thoughts, streamed in from the keyblade in his hands.  
  
"Thundar..a?!" Luigi screeched, cutting a swath through the air with the blade. It lit up, sending out a swarm of energy bolts down on the two exposed hands. With a deafening crackle the two downed hands were struck with the blasts, several smashing the metal cord holding the left one in place - Gutsman reeled back, swinging his other fist prematurely from the ground. Wily screamed as he dove away, the loose limb nearly swatting him out of existance. Luigi landed on the ground unharmed - the same couldn't be said for Gutsman.  
  
"Rggghhhh..." Wily clenched his fists, seething. "...Gutsman's taken far too much damage to operate properly... this isn't happening!! Gutsman! We flee!!"  
  
"Uh... I'm% u25p with that..." Gutsman's shattered exterior continued to crackle as he fell back, scooping up Wily. Wily continued to fume as Gutsman raised back into the air, barely keeping himself afloat.  
  
"Don't think this is the end!" Wily yelled. "Don't think you or that brat are the only ones with keyblades around here! You got that?!" he pounded his fists against Gutsman's thick exterior as he was quickly whisked away by his marginally-functioning creation. Luigi continued to blink, slowly bringing down the keyblade and looking it over again. Wily and Gutsman were already a speck on the horizon by the time he raised his head again. He spun around to the echoing cheers of the koopa brigade behind him.  
  
"...that was me?" Luigi pointed back at the ALASTOR.  
  
"Hamanah." the warren let out a wheeze, removing his goggles. "...holy crap... you Mushroom Kingdom folks, you've got a bunch of these super troopers!" Luigi quickly found the koopa at his heels, laying kisses on his sandy boots. He promptly spewed out a mouthful of dirt.  
  
"...Peach." Luigi's attention returned to the heap a distance away. As the crowd cleared away, he watched as another pair of Troopas leant her back up against the transmission pipe, another of the exterior workers fanning her with a clipboard.  
  
"Sir," he sputtered. "...I just checked... and our security clearance has been restored!"  
  
"Ah, I think we're about done here. She looks like she's alright. ALRIGHT YOU CRETINS, CRISIS AVERTED! Get back to work!"  
  
Again Luigi's emphasis shifted as he jogged towards the chain-link gate. "...Troy?!"  
  
"Okay, crisis not averted." the warren continued to pound on the control panel sticking out of the ground nearby. "We've got all the computer access we need, but none of the mechanical gates are responding to my commands. That Vast crap's gotta be gumming up the works somehow."  
  
Luigi twitched, holding up the keyblade. Quickly an electric charge built into it, ready to blast the gate into pieces. But, as he continued to stare at the door, the enchantment dampened again - Luigi grit his teeth, feeling his newfound might waver as he again realized what lied behind those doors - unabridged Vast. He backed up, gripping the weapon with both hands as a trickle of the dark ooze slithered out from underneath the windowed gate. "...oh, man..."  
  
--------  
  
"Eeeniemeeniemineymoeichooseleft." Troy pivoted, changing direction and dashing down another greyed corridor. He had already lost track of the first five turns he made, already starting to pray dearly that he would run across other more easily-accessible emergency exits. What worried him more was the lack of Vast. While it was gushing in certain spots outside, it obviously wasn't where Troy was - meaning it was bottled up somewhere. Whoever happened to be in that location...  
  
Troy screeched to a halt, taking a deep breath - it was then that the stale air hit him, far from any sort of lifegiving surface vent. More noticable, however, was the sudden drop ahead of him - not much of a long drop, instead leading into a ravine of Vast upon which supply crates floated. Troy let out a hack as both his vision was blurred and the stench quickly thickened the air. "...this... isn't good. I'm under the assumption this would be a bit much for CHRONICLE to protect me from..." he scanned the room again, noticing the exit on the far side, and a pair of Troopas standing on top of a giant smelter. The device's top sat just inches above the top layer of the slime.  
  
"Hang on!" Troy shouted, swinging his arms back and forward again as he leapt to the first crate. His legs shook as the crate sunk to the side he landed on, almost throwing Troy off balance. He tried to straighten himself, and just as he was about to throw his arms back to give himself the leverage needed to make another bound, the sea of darkness under him shuddered again. This time he fell on his rear, and quickly noticed the massive mound of Vast rising in front of him. It craned up, its 'head' parting. The ooze formed thick strands that held the two pieces together, as a dull roar erupted from within.  
  
"Aiaiaiaiaiai..." Troy stuck the CHRONICLE into the Vast, paddling away as fast as he could. A shaft of the sticky material lanced out from the beast, arcing around and slamming back into the sludge where he had just been. Troy rode the waves, which tossed his box to the side - the tremors hit the wall and rebounded back, sending him back at the behemoth - Troy sheepishly drug the blade out of the Vast and slashed at the base of the Vast golem as hard as he could, and the sentient snake responded with an appropriate scream as it began to crumble apart. Troy shielded himself again as he was again thrown into the wall, this time closer to the blast furnace upon which the worker Troopa perched. He scrambled up onto the machinery, now in much the same situation as the Vast's hostage - the box behind him splintered apart, damaged from the impact.  
  
"Smooth." the miner replied dully.  
  
Troy spun around as the monster now skimmed back in his direction. It bellowed again as a pair of tendrils shot out of its side, suddenly lunging down at Troy - he leapt back with a yelp as the limbs pierced through the top of the reinforced forge with an ear-piercing shriek. With them temporarily lodged in the metal, Troy lunged back forward, cleaving through the left one with ease. The beast reeled back in shock, but simply thrust out another one from the murky mess. "...he's got all that crap to just fix himself up with..."  
  
"Hey, that thing's got a head, doesn't it?"  
  
"And how am I supposed to GET to it?" Troy backed up again, pushing the worker back in the process as the tentacles continued to thrash in front of him.  
  
"Listen, if it's the others you're worried about, we've gotten most of them out! This place has more than one emergency shaft, you kn-"  
  
"Most?!" Troy whirled around.  
  
"WATCH IT!" Both troopas bounded away in time as the Vast whips flayed the surface of the forge, scraping it up further. "...anyways... we appreciate your coming in here, but we've already got things under control! I can't say much for the facility itself, though... speaking of the facility, we're in a bit of a pickle here... we can't get to the rafters with the Vast up this high. The ladder is on the far side of the chamber... and, we're kind of... stuck."  
  
Troy's pupils shrunk as he turned around again to face the behemoth, its surface wildly warping as it continued to emit its low rumble. Its two tendrils quickly multiplied, dozens of dark lances suddenly shooting out from its surface down at them. Troy leapt up in response, flailing his weapon across in an attempt to break through - his shell let out a loud groan as one of the tentacles slammed into it, exploding and sending its host flying back. Troy slid down the wall, shaking his head as he hit the ground - another cluster of them sped at him, while the other Troopa dove to safety.  
  
"Dragon Fang!!"  
  
Troy regained his composure soon enough to notice the entire celing come down over top of the Vast serpent's head - a massive chunk of granite slammed into its 'back', causing its head to rear up - in just the right position for a red-cloaked swordsman to plummet down and drive a katana through it.  
  
"Auron!!" Troy yelled.  
  
Auron flipped over as the creature spasmed, planting his boots onto its face and pressing off - with a loud splash the sword was ripped free, trailing Auron as he leapt from the slick surface of the creature and down to Troy.  
  
"There's no time!" Auron growled. "Leave!"  
  
"And how are we supposed to do THAT?" Troy shouted back.  
  
"You, wield a keyblade! Meaning, YOU, have the power! I'll take care of this beast, escape while you can!" Auron swung out his blade again, harmlessly deflecting another precision strike from one of the many slimy strands flung at him. As the entire cluster was hurled at him, he suddenly dashed to the edge of the platform - Troy watched with a blank expression on his face as he let the blade scrape against the ground, suddenly letting out a blast of flame that sent him flying across the expansive chamber. He landed with a roll on the adjacent smelter, far out of range of the Vast.  
  
Troy lurched as he felt the other koopa grapple onto him. "What gives? I don't have any fire, or whatever he's got! Auron, how are YOU getting out of here?!" Troy stepped out of the way as another large piece of the structure crashed down onto the smelter.  
  
"If you don't yet have the power, then awaken it! And... I have my own means of leaving!"  
  
Troy glanced down at his keyblade again, feeling it pulse with energy under his control. "...I'll... see what I can do?"  
  
Auron turned his attention back to the Vast, watching as it lashed its tentacles back to strike him again. He effortlessly dodged backwards as it struck the ground where he once stood - lunging forward again he completely ran up the limb. It stretched considerably under his weight but still held as he darted up it with surprising agility. As he neared the top he leapt, letting out a bellow as he delivered a hard slash straight into the side of the serpent's head - the heavy blade cleaved through the sludge with little effort, causing the solidified form of the substance to destabilize. Auron performed one last step off the head, launching himself again as the Vast beneath him crumbled back into the liquid below it. He landed where Troy had commandeered his crate, knelt in the corridor as he nodded back to him.  
  
"Right..." Troy gripped the other koopa's hand tightly, his other fidgeting in the handcage of the CHRONICLE. Slowly he began his run, his partner trailing behind. He hunched down as he neared the edge of the smelter, starting to wonder for what reason the miner had no problem with him running straight towards a long fall into a murky death.  
  
"You CAN do what that other dude pulled off." he mumbled. "...I'm assuming."  
  
"Let's find out." Troy grumbled.  
  
Troy crouched down lower, ready to leap as he slammed the keyblade down against the tempered metal of the furnace. "...let's FLY!"   
  
He forced himself upwards, seeing the leap as very much the same one he had accomplished earlier - a legion of Troopas behind him, ready to beat him down and drag him back to Bowser at a moment's notice... he was running then for reasons he didn't know quite yet, but his ambition was enough to propel him over a large gap in the ground that would've tripped him up severely and cost him the chase. It was then he'd go on to be drug back anyways, and meet Sirius, which would lead to his discovery of the CHR...  
  
Troy was suddenly jarred from his daydream as he slammed facefirst into the rung of a ladder. On instinct he threw his hand out, gripping both the keyblade and the next rung down in one hand. He sagged, his other hand still holding up the other Troopa - who now stared at him with wide eyes.  
  
"...huh?" Troy said dully.  
  
The worker wedged himself free from Troy's iron grip, falling a few feet before grabbing onto the ladder with both hands. He still didn't seem to be holding on with all his strength, but was instead using it to study Troy again. "...what... ARE you?!"  
  
Troy looked up again, noticing where he was - the platform he had been on moments before was a good 60 feet away from the catwalk access ladder he and his companion hung from. Wasting no more time he quickly started to clamber up the chute, the other koopa in pursuit - the Vast beneath them continued to bubble violently, and Troy quickly realized the truth - it was rising. Had he not jumped when he did he would have had no time to do so later. It took only minutes of hastened scaling for the two to come to the chute's cover - Troy jammed the CHRONICLE into the wheel, giving it a hard jerk. The cover swung down, nearly sending Troy flying off the ladder. "Let's go!"  
  
"I'D say so!!" The other Troopa started shoving him up. The Vast beneath had skyrocketed, and was no longer rising but shooting up the tunnel behind them. Troy yelped, dragging himself out of the pipe - he hoisted his partner out behind, both leaping to their feet. They had come out on top of the mesa, and in the moment it took them to realize that the dark ooze exploded out of the gap in the rock behind them, turning into a fountain as the two blindly leapt off the edge.  
  
"Crud." Troy said flatly as he hit the largely-slanted hill. Both retreated into their shells as they began a very painful bounce down the side of the exploding mountain. More painful would be the baseball-sized rock that he just managed to notice out of his peephole, which by a streak of very bad luck would fly straight through the hole.  
  
--------  
  
The throne room was quiet as the mushroom retainers lined the chamber, all glancing around and chatting amongst themselves as the king rose from his throne. Suddenly he parted his arms, and the crowd went silent. He himself looked around again. Finally his eyes settled on Luigi, standing directly in front of him.  
  
"Two steps back." the monarch whispered.  
  
"Oh." Luigi stumbled backwards, settling into position. He slowly began to kneel down, staring back at the king for approval. Finally he settled.  
  
Meanwhile, Sirius, Selphie, Peach, Troy, Mario, Toad, Toadsworth and Wooster all stood on the side. Troy clenched his fist, grumbling as he rubbed the giant bandaid on his head with his free hand. "What's the deal here? Someone tell me exactly why Weeg is getting the credit?"  
  
"If dad really wants to start a chapter of knights... Luigi could use the boost, especially after today. He's still a little shaken up by the keyblade... springing to life and everything in his hands. And... he's still not comfortable standing in the same situation as Troy is... I mean, now that he's got a keyblade, he's going to be an asset to us, and he's going to be running into more Vast either way, right?"  
  
"That is his duty." Sirius said emotionlessly.  
  
Toad twitched.  
  
"We stand at a crossroads," the king said firmly. "...many of you may be full aware of our contact with the Koopa kingdom, and the unfortunate tragedy that led to our conflict... we are obviously facing a challenge that is affecting more than our kingdom alone. It is for this reason that we, along with the Koopa kingdom and many other smaller regimes, are forming knight chapters to deal with the security situation that our world is experiencing, and help us learn more about the Vast, as it has been named. It is now that we must seek out the keyblades, and prepare properly for the threat of the Vast."  
  
"Well, I guess we can sleep easier, huh?" Selphie folded her arms behind her head.  
  
"Not yet. Only when more keyblades get within our grasp can we be safe." Sirius interjected.  
  
The king raised a staff, lowering it slowly and letting it touch Luigi's shoulder - as soon as he did, a loud slam echoed out from across the room. "...what in blazes..."  
  
A daikatana's tip rested against the floor. Auron tugged on the front of his collar before letting his hand fall back to his side. "...I hope I'm not interrupting anything."  
  
Troy stepped out into the aisle. "Auron? What are you doing here? How did you know where here IS?"  
  
"Oh, I've been around." Auron nodded. "...I don't imagine Troy's part of this spectacle? I'd like to have a word with him."  
  
"Oh, by all means." the king waved his arm. "...we'll still need a few minutes."  
  
Everyone watched as Auron turned around and left in his melancholy manner. Troy jogged to catch up to him as the mushroom retainers shut the door behind them. Troy was back out in the grand hall, looking around. He grumbled to himself before noticing Auron staring out one of the stained glass windows. "..uh, yeah? What's going on?"  
  
Auron's shoulders sagged. "I feel something, and I imagine others do as well."  
  
"Do I get twenty questions?"  
  
Auron sighed. "...and you obviously don't. I don't imagine these are matters that concern me, but I am still getting a little worried. You came unscathed out of a Vast-infested kingdom, and it's only seemed to follow you as you've combated it far too much in these past few days to be healthy. Siegfried, that man back there, that Wily... he made mention of your keyblade as well. Apparently you're a little too popular."  
  
"Yeah, Keypers do that, they run around, they beat the crap out of Vast, I figured by now that was routine?"  
  
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I have this really bad feeling that the keyblade you possess is going to become a hot commodity around these parts. You're quite the celebrity, and the CHRONICLE itself has shown to be extremely powerful. Tell me, how exactly did you leap that far to get to the escape chute? The gap between must have been at least double the distance I jumped beforehand. On top of that, I didn't seem to notice much mana expelled, at least the amount required to throw you that far."  
  
"...I..." Troy glanced back to the window. "...really don't know."  
  
"The CHRONICLE's power is still awakening, and people are already jealous for it - I'm only going to say this once. You're going to need to be careful if you want to go any further as a Keyper. That weapon is yours and yours alone, and in the wrong hands it could do disaster upon this world, or any other for that matter. I'll be in touch if you want to discuss matters later, but for now I must be off. And keep in mind... I'm not going to be in this world forever." Auron straightened himself, shooting a glance at Troy before tugging up on his collar. He turned, walking off - Troy continued to stare at the man as another great door, and the shadows beyond it, sheathed him.  
  
Troy raised his arm, but let it fall again. "...ugh."  
  
--------  
  
Wily crashed to his knees, slapping his hands down against the exotic rug beneath him. "I mean it! From the bottom of my heart, I-"  
  
"Ha." the wispy-haired man, dressed in a bright red bathrobe, lowered the lit incense. He let it fall softly into a tall vase, turning around. He sat down cross-legged on the straw mat beneath him, seeming to actual attention to the scientist. "...ha. Ha ha... heart, you say? Heart? Dare you say you're immune to the Darkness? Obviously, if you can't even tackle the Princess, let alone the plumbers, I would just love to see you stand up against the rising tide without a keyblade. The one possessing ALASTOR had no experience at all using it, you say, yet you and your creation were still defeated. Well, I guess that confirms things."  
  
Wily shrank back.  
  
"No going outside without a buddy." he set his large, bandaged hands on his kneecaps. His eyes seemed to burn brighter than before as he glanced down. "...I must be alone at this time. I have to prepare. Prepare for the Darkness."  
  
Wily reeled back. "...is it coming?"  
  
"Soon enough. If everything goes to plan we'll be long gone by then. But... we must step up our efforts." his head sagged for a moment, before snapping back up. "Fawful!"  
  
"What is in the process of being asked?" the paper door at the edge of the chamber flew open again, revealing Fawful's scrawny frame. "Leader! Inform me!"  
  
"Let Pokey know that he has some work to do tomorrow. The CHRONICLE needs to be seized. Tell him that Valentina will be accompanying him."  
  
"That is also in the process of being done!" the doors slammed shut again.  
  
"But-" Wily stammered.  
  
"You failed. You'll get another chance soon enough. That is, if you can justify it. Now... begone." he cast his hands apart. Wily obediently did as he was told, grumbling as he quickly sped back to the exit.  
  
--------  
  
Auron's eyes flashed open. The wind rustled through the streets of Toad Town, gently tossing his robes about. He stood upon a thick wooden rafter, the sign suspended from its bottom rattling softly. His sword was held across his shoulder, it bobbing as he shifted his frame again. Grumbling he stared back up into the starry sky - something still remained amiss. Though Troy had sounded confident in his own abilities, he had bore witness to many of the same attitudes in fallen Keypers. The sudden intrusion of the Vast, coupled with the relentless attempts by others to seize control of the weapon did not particularly help matters.  
  
He leapt down, brandishing his weapon as the shadows surrounded him.  
  
--------  
  
Comments? Queries? Death threats?  
  
Ultimanium  
  
chandkstu.augustana.ca 


	5. The Troyjan Horse

"The situation at the oilsands has stabilized. The Koopa Troop again sends its thanks to Troy and his allies, and gives word that any decision of Troy's to rejoin the Troop will be gladly welcom-" 

The mushroom retainer jumped back as Troy slowly pivoted his head in his direction, shooting him an annoyed glare. "They just don't give up, do they." Troy sighed to himself, letting his chin slump down on the guardrail of one of the castle's balconies. "Even through all this crap that's been going on, Bowser still can't understand what's going on here..."

"U-understood, is there anything you'd lik-"

"Yeesh." Troy grumbled, causing the royal servant to jump back again. "Before I came to the Mushroom Kingdom I'd be the one stammering and stuttering while carrying out orders... I'm fine, but if you're coming here to say something to me, just blurt it out." Troy pressed himself off the rail, spinning around in place. He now stood toe-to-toe with his visitor - a young mushroom girl, staring at him timidly and trying her hardest to hide her eyes under her yellow-dotted cap. "...eh, you're new here, huh."

"Well... y-yes... but I heard that you were that... key..."

"Mmmmmhm, what about it..." Troy's face twitched.

"Well..."

"Well."

"...a l-lot of people are thankful that you helped save this town..."

Troy blinked, relaxing again. "...well... it's good to know that this place has calmed down again, that's enough thanks for me."

"And a lot of people LIKE you!" She suddenly pressed her hands into her face, turning beet red.

Troy went deadpan, turning and slumping back against the rail. "I'm a flavor of the week." He glanced over as a large book was slapped down next to him. He stood again, staring into Selphie's face.

"We've got a new lead!" she blurted out, already flipping through the tome in her hands. "Peach told me to tell you to get your butt down to the royal chamber when you can!"

* * *

"Major outbreaks of Vast have stopped for now," Sirius mumbled, drawing his jagged finger along a tattered old map. His path crossed from the Mushroom Kingdom to the recently added Dark Land, and let it droop down to a point halfway between, in the south - where another smaller continent stood. "The Koopa Troop has so far been cooperative in establishing militia groups to report and squander appearances of the Vast, moreso than your knight chapters, actually."

"They'd obviously seen the worse side of it compared to us... with how Bowser turned out." Peach was leant against the wall.

"Anyways..." Sirius beckoned to those around him. "It's important that we expand our borders of security. Now it's come to my understanding that the Mushroom Kingdom has other trade partners that I hadn't known of earlier..."

"We haven't had a meaningful conversation with Sarasaland for years..." the king tugged at the collar of his robe. "...but we do trade food for beautiful exotic art now and then."

Luigi stared at a white canvas on the wall, with a giant splotch of red paint in the middle. "...I.. see."

"And were they informed of the Vast invasion?"

Peach glanced around. "...well, no, we figured that this invasion has so far been an isolated occ-"

"ISOLATED?" Sirius suddenly threw his hands down against the table. "If you were so not aware, the Vast fell from the sky to wreak havoc! It will not care if you are standing on a mountain or in its core, it has the experience and physical properties necessary to hunt you down wherever you decide to hide!"

"What'd I miss..." Troy strolled through the open door of the command room, rubbing his eyes.

"More incredible adventures of homeland security." Mario sat at the table, his hand lying on it less than an inch from where Sirius' claw fell.

"Are you freaking out again..." Troy slowly walked to the other end of the table, plopping himself down in a worn mahogany chair. "Take a pill Sirius, we know what's going on here, the Kingdom's been busy supplying its own soldiers. We'll see what the Vast has in store in due time. What crazy demands do you have now..."

Sirius glared daggers at Troy, but Peach quickly stepped inbetween them. "We need people to act as ambassadors to the kingdom of Sarasaland. We don't have the resources to supplement them right now, but we can at least let them know exactly what is going on with our increased military spending."

"You need to reassure them on that?" Troy sighed. "I thought you were allies."

"Allies in trade." Toadsworth slurred. "...we don't... exactly do much beyond that. Still, we need to confirm that nothing's been going wrong there, otherwise it might come back to haunt us..."

"Well, I'll go," Troy stood back up. "It's about time someone let me out of this palace, I'm getting claustrophic. And if the Vast is potentially there like Debbie Downer over here insists, then I'm your man for fighting it."

"Luigi will remain here." Sirius barked. Luigi flinched, standing more rigid. "It is important that we have a Keyper able to deal with a security situation here should one arise."

"Well let's go give them a message they aren't going to forget!" Troy was quick to turn and march straight out.

"What do you mean we?" Sirius shot back.

Troy ground to a halt. "...whoa whoa whoa, you don't mean-"

"Yes. Yes, I do mean."

* * *

**NSX: Chapter 5**

**The Troyjan Horse**

And so Troy would find himself trudging across a barren wasteland, out in the nether reaches of the world. He shielded his eyes as he tilted his head back. The sun glowed in acknowledgment. Wiping his brow again, Troy pushed forward. By now he was no stranger to epic crusades on foot. The good news was that, unlike that cursed day, it wasn't wet enough that he had to slog through ankle-deep water, wet dirt, mud, or any sadistic combination of the three. For once in the tortoise's life, he was actually growing sick of the concept of water.

The bad news was, he would regret that notion as he was being commanded to walk straight across a desert.

"Why can't they put a port next to their city, I say," Troy snarled. He plopped down on his behind with a dull thud, braced by the loosely-packed sand beneath him. He pried off one of his boots, giving the clawed toes within a badly-needed breath of fresh air. He fitted the heavy shoes back on, but not before dumping a handful of sand out of it. "But Troy, they are retarded and vehemently demand isolation from the barbarians, like yourself."

The Chronicle had been keeping him moving. Firmly keeping it in his grasp gave him a vivid image of water of some kind, and the hollow taste it had... exactly how, he had no clue. But it was enough to keep him infuriated and willing to march on towards the kingdom of Birabuto, the primary kingdom of Sarasaland.

Troy cupped his hands to his mouth, yelling forward as he walked. "WHATEVER BRAIN-DEAD REGIME CONTROLS THIS DIRTHEAP, I'M COMING FOR Y-" his announcement rang short as he plowed straight into a sandstone wall. Stumbling back he rubbed his nose, staring upwards again into the sky. What was in front of him had literally come out of nowhere.

"So I was having a mirage of... nothing." Troy looked around the walls, trying to find a way through. "Of course I know that I have a reason to complain that'll get nullified when I actually find out what these people are like." Troy pressed his hand onto a more beige-toned brick, jumping back as it sank into the wall. A nearby cluster of bricks depressed into the wall accordingly, sliding to the side to reveal a short corridor that lead beyond the wall. Troy was immediately flanked by two enormous tan-skinned men, covered with little more than leather harnesses and strange cloth caps that draped around the sides of their heads.

"State your business in the lands of Birabuto!" One barked, stabbing down with the bottom end of a spear in his hands.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold it... I'm an emissary from the Mushroom Kingdom. I'm here to speak with the... leader of this... place, concerning recent security issues within the Mushroom Kingdom."

"Nonsense! We've heard nothing of those fools for years. Begone!"

Troy heaved a sigh, slowly turning around. "Maaaan, what's Peach gonna say about this..." he stood still for a moment, staring off sideways into the dunes. Slowly he looked over his shoulder, realizing that both guards had turned a ghostly shade of white. "...uh.. what?"

"Has Peach come to deliver her wrath over our fair kingdom?! Surely this will be an epic conflict! We must warn Daisy at once!"

"That's correct!" the other man nodded fervently. "Daisy would want nothing more than to settle this score personally!"

"Wh-what? The Mushroom Kingdom isn't invading Sarasaland... we just want to talk, sheesh." Troy sulked, staring behind him again. He hoped no one had actually come with him to retell the conversation.

"The Mushroom Kingdom is of no concern! They are our allies! But-but... Peach is not to be trifled with!"

"That is correct!" The second guard twitched. "Peach and Daisy's last epic conflict destroyed half the city!"

"Dare I ask what this 'epic conflict' was about?" Troy scratched the back of his head.

"Daisy had wanted to wear a yellow dress!"

"But that did not sit well with Princess Peach! She had recommended a white dress!"

"The resulting battle was cataclysmic!"

"Indeed!"

"It was catastrophic to our economy!"

"Even moreso to our clothing market!"

"Many people lost their lives!"

"Horrific!"

"OKAY! OKAY!" Troy flailed his arms. "Just lemme through! I have important information that this Daisy psychopath needs to know, stuff that compromises your national security!"

"Moreso than Peach?"

"YES, MORESO THAN PE..." Troy slapped his forehead. "OKAY, no more of this, go, go, take me."

* * *

Troy and his escorts slowly tread through a courtyard in the center of the ancient-looking city. It was a bit drab compared to everything that was immediately around it, which led Troy to thinking he was being lead to the lockup rather than the 'palace' that the guards spoke of. A wide variety of cactuses grew around the walkway he was on, and over the stubby stone walls that encircled the open yard ragged-dressed people could be seen running this way and that, browsing through the endless bazaars that lined the old stone buildings nearby. Troy's looksee was cut short as he slipped inbetween the two pillars that held up the front roof of the pantheon. Entering the hall ahead of him he found himself mystified again - the supports were made some gleaming white metallic compound, and the floors were made of expensive marble. Various pieces of art draped the walls, and a fountain against the left wall shot a spray of water into the air that was absent anywhere else in the town. Troy slowly started to unconsciously drift towards it until the two guards pulled him back into place.

"We're not there are we?" Troy stared down at both guards, quickly realizing they were kneeling. Troy followed suit, but not before hearing a dull sigh.

Standing in front of the three was a woman not much taller than Peach, but more regally dressed for all intents and purposes - she wore a small-fitting, yellow-orange dress laced with white satin, that flared out from her waist down. She was far more tanned than Peach, or even most of the people he saw in the city for that matter, although her chestnut hair was of similar length.

"P-Princess Daisy," one of the guards stammered. "We found this intruder seeking to gain access to Birabuto, what shall we do with him?"

"Intruder?!" Troy screeched. "Argh, I should've known better than to have you tards 'escort' me... listen, I'm sorry for the informality here, but... my name is Troy Kiemen, I'm a member of the recently established Koopa Troop here on behalf of the Mushroom Kingdom to present you a message." Troy stuck a hand down the neck hole of his shell, digging around for a moment before tearing out a dust-crusted envelope. Daisy stared at Troy clearly unimpressed.

"Open the envelope." she ordered.

"Oh puhlease... why does no one here trust me? Look, it's got the freaking Mushroom Kingdom emblem on it, we don't have time to play who's-the-bigger-xenophobe here."

"People have been known to emulate the ancient Mushroom seal before. Now do as I command or you will be tried for attempted assassination."

"Ugh... okay, whatever..." Troy grabbed under the lip of the envelope, tearing the top half off. He dumped its contents into Daisy's hands - one large paper, one small paper. "Okay! Do you believe me now?!"

"That would depend on this." Daisy held up the smaller paper. "Only Peach would know what to send with a royal message that would actually get my attention. Now, I'll need a moment to decide your fate." she reached up with her other hand, scratching away a layer of graphite from the top of the slip.

Troy gulped, glancing at the musclebound guards now holding him back.

Peach's face twisted, then returned to its normal frown. Slowly she started to grin - and then laughed. Troy looked back up, expecting to see his death. Instead... he saw a smile. The stupid, blissful, goofy smile that he'd only seen on Peach prior.

"Oh Peach, you still know what makes me tick..." she waved the paper in front of her for all to see. "A 200-coin gift certificate for Bed, Bath and Beyond... I was gonna head down to the salon again one of these days. Okay, now what was the info that Peach wanted to hand over to me? You can tell me."

"What the hell? You threatened me with death because you didn't know if you were getting a gift from Peach?"

Daisy giggled. "I'm a busy girl! I have to get people to let me have my me-time somehow!"

"Okay, you got what you wanted." Troy wrested himself out of the sentries' grasp. "Now, just read the other message. We have to talk... it's important."

* * *

A few minutes had passed. Troy was seated in an luxurious couch in an antechamber of the palace. He wrapped his hands around the back of it, drumming his fingers as he watched Daisy pace back and forth on the other side of the room. She still gripped the royal paper in both hands. Troy's keyblade lied dormant on a table between the two.

"So that's why she missed me on MSN this week." Peach murmured. "I didn't think things were going this dreadfully in the Mushroom Kingdom... she'd spoken to me earlier about an alliance she made with this Koopa Kingdom, but I didn't hear anything about them attacking. And now that black substance that's all over the Kingdoms... what's it doing there?"

"We have no idea." Troy let his head droop. "I was originally with the Koopa Troop before it got infected by the Vast. That celestial being that Peach mentions picked me up first, and we both split to the Mushroom Kingdom to try to contain the Vast in the Troop before they went COMPLETELY nuts and destroyed Toad Town. Before we got there, Sirius took me to some underground cavern where we found the keyblade." Troy nudged himself in the direction of the Chronicle. "Apparently the keyblades are the only thing that can permanently banish the Vast. We've got reason to believe that there's more keyblades scattered across the world. Peach discovered one in the basement of her palace and it was later attuned to someone else, but I've personally seen two others being wielded. One nearly took off my head."

"This keyblade is yours then?"

Troy nodded.

Daisy ran her hands along the wall, staring into another painting. "Can these keyblades do other things beside act as weapons?"

"Well, I'm not sure if I should be telling you this personally, but... for some reason, ever since I got the Chronicle my memory's been getting sharper and sharper... maybe it's just the calamity of the Vast settling in, but... when I was rescuing someone from a Vast-filled room at the bottom of a sludge mine, I had to jump from the top of a smelter to a ladder on the other side of the room to escape. At first I thought it would be impossible to accomplish, but.. the more I thought about how I'd jumped over different things at different stages of my life, the more possible it looked. By the time I snapped back to thinking about my current situation, I was already flying through the air and barely managed to grab the ladder before smashing into it."

Daisy sat down on the couch, getting more and more lost in conversation. "What else?"

"Oh! That guy who uses the other keyblade we found, his name's Luigi... but when we finally got it, we were getting chased by this other guy and his giant robot... and all of a sudden Luigi swings that blade up and starts yelling gibberish like 'Thundara! Thundaga!' and he starts shooting all these blasts of lightning all over the place! It was cool, he just blasted that hunk of junk into bits! It was mad. And at some point I got attacked by this guy in huge black armor, and he..." Troy looked over, noticing Daisy's stare becoming more and more distant. "...something wrong?"

"...it sounds like Peach is finally getting what she wanted." Daisy looked up, her eyes suddenly looking more hollow. "Ever since we first met as kids, Peach has always gone on spouting about how she'd always wanted to see the unknown and live on the cutting edge of discovery, and she..."

"A man in black appeared to me." Troy interrupted.

"...a man in black?"

"He told me that this world had been connected," Troy trailed off. "But connected to what, I don't know... all I can figure out is that it has to do something with all these people that are causing chaos in the Mushroom Kingdom... and the appearance of the keyblades... and the Vast itself. But I, I mean we, we have no leads on what caused the Vast to descend on us. And now there's people that are deliberately targeting those who have the keyblades, hoping to steal them for their own uses. Whatever we're fighting, on any front... it's not of this world."

"Are we... being invaded?"

"There's a possibility. And so far we're the only ones that can stand up to defend this world. I know... it's a lot to digest, I don't even know what's going on or how much of it I'll be able to withstand. But anyways... Peach made a good decision to warn you about what's happening over there. Because, soon, there's a chance it could consume more people. Maybe even Sarasaland. You have to be prepared, Daisy. You have to find the keyblades and get them to their rightful owners. Soon you may be in..."

Troy looked up at Daisy, who now stood over him.

"Please. Wait here." Daisy said firmly.

* * *

Troy held a new keyblade up in the light, its silver shaft glinting.

"This looks exactly like the Alastor before it was activated." Troy waved the device around in air. It was noticeably heavier than his own - likely as he was not attuned to it as he was with his own. "So you've had this in the palace all the long?"

"It was a relic passed down from the old pharaohs of Birabuto. We have a lot of preserved artifacts from hundreds of years ago in the kingdom vault, but this one hasn't shown any signs of age at all. Almost like someone was protecting it... there's legends that the ancient kings wielded scepters of power on the battlefield and in the court. Light was all them and warded pretty much all darkness away. There's a text that says they literally used one to light one of the main halls of their largest palace. But, all that's left is this..." Daisy took the keyblade back into her hands. "We always just thought that this was an imitation built by one of the lesser houses of the pharaoh."

Troy picked up the Chronicle from the table, pointing it at the other keyblade. The keychain on the other blade jiggled and fell into place - a gold-trimmed outline of a star. "It's the real deal alright."

"So if this is one of those keyblades... what are we supposed to do with it?"

Troy folded his arms, staring off into space. "Eventually, someone will come to claim it. When the right person comes in contact with it, it'll regain its original form. That's what happened with the Alastor. When Luigi touched it, it turned from the chintzy-looking blade, like that, into the superweapon he's got now. Until then, it's important that you keep it out of the wrong hands."

"So people know it's here." Daisy said wistfully.

"I don't know for sure... but people have already attacked me out of the blue trying to pry mine out my hands... so you can never be too sure."

"Take it to the Mushroom Kingdom." Daisy spat out.

"I'm not going anywhere with that thing," Troy shot back. Daisy made a frustrated frown. "I know exactly how uncomfortable you are with me barging in here and telling you that you're going to be under siege from both some unknown alien force and an uncountable number of people trying to get their hands on this keyblade. But listen to me - if you keep the keyblade, you have the people coming for it. But if you just throw it away, you will be able to do nothing against the Vast, and I can tell you for a fact the Vast is a zillion times worse. I watched the Koopa Troop nearly fall apart when they got their minds flayed by it. I'm sorry, your highness, but my words have more weight than yours."

"Do you think you can just start walk in here and start telling me how to run Birabuto?" Daisy slowly rose to her feet, planting her hands firmly upon the table. "I'm busy trying to keep this country from sinking into the sands, and the people are trying to keep a stable livelihood. That's not easy in this corner of the world. We don't have time to fight your little war."

"One, this is not a war. This is survival," Troy snarled. "And two, it's going to be bigger than you could ever imagine." Troy reached over, snatching the other keyblade off the table. "If you're not going to step up to this challenge, then don't expect Peach's aid."

"...p-please."

"Oh, now wh..." as Troy turned around, he suddenly found himself stopping cold. Daisy was back on the couch, one hand plastered over a side of her face. Troy let his limbs go limp as he realized that she was stifling back sobs. Troy looked away, rubbing the back of his head. "...I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be... blunt like that..."

"Peach sent you here to tell me this... I know I shouldn't... be just brushing you off. But... just look around you. We're in no condition to defend this thing! Our population's too low, we have virtually no national defense compared to the Mushroom Kingdom, or even the Koopa Troop from the way you describe things. We don't have the natural resources that the rest of Sarasaland has. It would be in better hands with the Muda, Easton or Chai kingdoms.. but what if what you say is right and people figure the keyblade is here? Then there'd be no escaping whoever comes directly to Birabuto looking for it..."

"We all have our problems now," Troy muttered. "If you say that you're unable to defend it until the time comes... then we have to find the person that this keyblade's calling out to... and fast."

* * *

"You have guts, Peach. You have guts."

Peach hunched down, planting her hands on her knees. Slowly she stared back up into the sun. "What am I even doing out here? Sirius is going to go into another hissyfit if he knows I escaped from the palace again... that I can live with, but the fact that the Kingdom's in a total mess now that everyone there's raising assumptions about the Vast... and that I hitched the next boat to Sarasaland without a word... that'll do even more damage to the royalty's credibility and raise even more pandemonium..."

Peach sat back down, emptying more sand out of her shoe. She was, just like Troy mere hours earlier, stuck out in the wastes of outer Birabuto. "Ohhhh... what am I even doing out here? I should have more confidence in Troy... but I can't get that burning idea out of my head that I should've delivered that message personally... I hope Troy managed to get Daisy's attention, I can't imagine him putting up with her special brand of paranoia..."

She spun around as a roar tumbled over the horizon. Looking up, she saw the source of the noise for a moment - a mid-sized jet tore over the horizon, covered in some areas by some thick, white grime.

Peach started moving forward again, neglecting the other shoe that lied in the sand. "That's not a Chai flying machine by any means... crap crap CRAP! I don't like this at all, I have to get to Birabuto and I've gotta do it f-"

She tripped, landing face-first in the sand with a dull _poomph_.

* * *

Troy sat on the steps of the Birabuto palace, with his chin resting limply on his palms. His eyes flitted around, watching the people swarming around the endless line of bazaars.

"I wonder if I'm doing the right thing..." Troy mumbled. "There IS a keyblade here, and I should be making sure that it gets into the right hands, but who knows exactly who that is... that could be anyone in this city, or world, or any OTHER world. There's no telling exactly how long I could be stuck here if I agree to whatever screwed up plan Daisy's got, and I have no way of getting any information about the key back to the Mushroom Kingdom in any decent time... ugh."

Troy stared at a woman nearby, handing over a bundle of coins in exchange for a sack of kiwis.

"And even then how am I supposed to determine who's the right one without swinging around the keyblade in clear view? That's not a very good idea either... man, why'd I get involved in this crap..." Slowly he pushed himself back to his feet, turning and noticing his imprint in yet another pile of dust. As he went back to brushing himself off, he found himself shadowed. He turned to find a pale-skinned, rugged-dressed woman standing in front of him. She was nearly twice as tall as Troy, and even the loose fitting clothes didn't do much to hide her curves. She had more fabric wrapped around the top of her head and over her mouth, from the top of which shining green hair poured out. She batted her lashes as Troy's eyes finally met hers, revealing sky-blue eyes. "...'scuse me."

"Yesss..." the lady hunched down, grabbing Troy's chin in one hand. She jerked it side to side before Troy wrested free. "You must be the one. We've heard all about you. You're Troy Kiemen of the Mushroom Kingdom, correct?"

"Technically speaking. Now get out of my way, I've got places to go before this place cooks me alive."

"That's really too bad, Keyper." she said, smirking as Troy shoved through her. "We were looking for someone to help us with this darkness problem too."

Troy slowly stumbled to a stop, looking over his shoulder. "How do you know who I am?"

"Isn't it elementary? You can't hide your identity forever. You've become a legend in the Mushroom Kingdom and it's only natural that such... talents spread to the winds. But anyways... I can't help but notice you've heard the princess's ordeal... it seems she is simply not endowed enough to handle commissioning that keyblade of hers to its rightful owner. Who knows... maybe this country might come under siege sooner than she thinks?"

"Were you listening to us?" Troy hissed.

"Listening? Oh no dear, I don't handle that espionage thing. Nor do I need to, what I just said is just word on the street. Word that we know for a fact is true. Many people know this, and a militia has been formed to both combat the darkness and make sure the keyblade falls into the right hands. You are free to cooperate with us. We know you understand this specimen thoroughly, and we-"

"No I don't."

"Well more than us anyways. My name is Syuuna... and I am part of a group of citizens that have lived in Birabuto for all our lives. We will fight to the death to see that it isn't overrun by this alien threat - and we are gathering again as we speak, outside of city limits, to discuss our next course of action in creating a failsafe plan to extract the 'keyblade' weapon from the palace should a crisis arise there. You are permitted to attend. Actually... you'll be there if you know what's good for you."

"Oh, well that's good to kn-" Troy's breath left him as a cloud of dust rushed up, consuming the two. Troy went into a coughing fit, wiping the sand out of his eyes as the fumes left as fast as they came. He found himself already lagging behind the woman as she strolled away. Looking around once more, it seemed no one else around him, even the patrolling spear sentinels, had seen what happened. Troy smiled, strolling back to the main walkway and back out into the city streets. "Well... it seems things just got a little more interesting..."

"Oh yes, it has. You act like you're the only one that's encountered these beasts... but you're mistaken." the woman slipped into a nearby alleyway. Troy thought for a moment, starting to frown. "...please, we don't have much time. We have to get to the city gates."

"Oh, of course. Sorry about that." Troy slowly treaded forward, following her into the narrow passageway. He slowed down as darkness started to envelop him.

"If we head this way, we can get out to th-BLERGH-" Syuuna lurched forward as Troy lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. Growling she threw her hand up, striking Troy across the face. Troy rolled over, throwing Syuuna to her side as her hand turned white. The blast of flame that cast off it struck one of the stone walls feet away, cancelling it out. Troy quickly clambered back to his feet and stumbled backwards to the entrance of the passage. Reaching down the neck of his shell, he quickly drew out his keyblade.

"UrrrRRGH!! How DARE you..." Syuuna slowly climbed back to her feet, wiping dirt off her face.

"Tell me who you are!" Troy snarled.

"What kind of question is that?! I told you everything I knew about me, and-"

"Your real name!"

"I don't know what you mean!"

"I'm not stupid," Troy laughed as a dry grin appeared on his face. "I might give enemies way more chances than should be healthy, but I'm not stupid. First and foremost, how do you 'live here all your life' and have skin that pale? Even someone with as much desk work as Daisy has more of a tan than you! And then, you're going in the complete opposite way of the city gate, or hey, while we're at it, how would you know to call what I'm holding a keyblade, especially when that's the exact terminology used by every single OTHER person I know?"

"You think it's just me here?" the woman reached over and tore off the robes, throwing them to the ground. Underneath were robes that glowed bright white, with a neon green mantle creeping over the shoulders. "...like I said, I'm not good with espionage. My talents lie elsewhere... I am Valentina, and your Chronicle is mine!" Valentina pressed both her palms together and let her hands fall apart - a great ball of flame quickly appeared between the two.

"Yes. Shooting fireballs. That's grand. This isn't a talent show lady, and if it were, you'd be thrown offstage by the other 4 people that spew flame." Troy swung up his blade as Valentina let the fireball go. The blast tore down the alley at rocket speed, causing the wind to howl uncontrollably. Troy grunted as he held his weapon behind him, swinging it up over top of him and down again. A metallic clang ran out and Valentina found her attack smashed back at her. Troy grimaced, but felt the blood leap from his legs as the numbed out from underneath him. Looking around in panic he soon found the cause - a trail of ice lead out from the darkness, freezing him solid up to the knees.

Valentina stuck her arm out, catching the fireball in the air. She held it forward for Troy to see. "I'm no rocket scientist, hun, but I know well enough what it takes to paralyze a cold-blooded creature like you."

(She's right... as long as she's keeping me nippy, even if I break out of whatever she throws at me, my body's eventually going to start shutting down...) Troy's head shot back up as Valentina hurled the orb of flame back at him. He swung his blade again, this time keeping it held in place on the key's teeth. He planted it against the ground and quickly disintegrated his frozen feet. Troy leapt back, continuing to backpedal out of the alley as Valentina began alternating hurling flame from both hands. Troy continued flailing the Chronicle around in his hands, nullifying the attacks, until Valentina suddenly slammed her hand into the ground. A lance of ice quickly congealed in the air. Troy squealed as he rolled out into the marketplace, barely evading it as it pierced straight through an exotic hedge behind him. People began to see the flames dancing around Troy's feet, and quickly began bundling up their goods and running away as Valentina exited the dark alley.

"You had me at a disadvantage, keeping me cooped up in that dank alley... should've pushed forward while you could kid, in an open space I've got the range advantage... and it's so much easier for me to get reinforcements."

"Reinforcements." Troy grumbled. He jumped in place as a deathly scream filled the air - a small jet plane plummeted out of the sky, pulverizing itself and a wagon full of fruit beneath it. Troy yelped as he was sent flying off his feet, the same hedge behind him bracing his fall. The wreckage was covered with a white sludge that rapidly dissolved off the scrap metal, reforming on the ground. Atop what remained of the fuselage of the plane stood a boy in shorts, his dress shirt flapping in the turbulent air. He had a head of greasy blond hair that completely covered his eyes. Folding his arms he turned his attention to Troy.

"Oh boy oh boy!" he snickered, snorting at the end. "I got here in time didn't I? You do remember you're supposed to get the Chronicle before you freeze him up good, huh?"

"Why Pokey, you know I wouldn't do that... he'd be so much easier to transport as ash."

"Whoa whoa whoa. You want the Chronicle?" Troy waved his hands in front of him. "Well, first of all, you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands, and secondly, don't tell me you're all affiliated with that Wily whacko?"

"For starters, Wily is one of those people that can perform brain surgery yet can't do up their own shoes. He'd try to send that clunker Gutsman versus you and your meddling friends all at once. Now... if you'll have a look around, Sir Troy Kiemen of the Mushroom Kingdom, you'll see that there's one of you and two of us." Pokey's shoulders bobbed as he continued giggling to himself. "Actually, y'know what, make that three of us." Pokey suddenly threw his arms behind him, raising them again. "Aspect of the dark god! Assemble to my will!"

"Dark god?" Troy's gaze floated to the white slime on the ground, which began rippling uncontrollably. Slowly it sprouted arms, blades solidifying all along them. A 'head' seperated itself from the ooze and floated above the main body, which gradually began to turn into a veined eyeball. "Man, why do you people get all the groovy powers, I only get black-goo cleanup duty with this key. Is that what you want Chronicle for? I don't think I have a dream job here."

"I've been blessed with power over a fragment of the fallen god, Giygas! Now you'll be seeing exactly how much power I hold!"

"You're not listening to me, are you?"

"Are you hearing my threat of supreme power?"

"Guess not." Troy rolled his eyes, looking away.

"Wait, what?" Pokey let his arms slump back to his side.

"I'm trying to ask you what your..." Troy threw his arms up in the air. "Argh... okay, can we just start over?"

"I guess so."

"Okay. Why are you sicing your blob-god on me? What is with Chronicle?"

"Blob-god?! You listen here, this 'blob-god' is-"

"You IDIOTS!!" Valentina screeched. "We don't have time for your retarded 'evil god' intro here. Pokey, if we don't get that keyblade to the master, the only beings you'll have to scare with your doomsaying are the rats in the brig! And Troy, if I were you I'd just hand over that thing nice and easy, otherwise we're going to be smashing you six ways from Sunday!"

Giygas hurled its slimy arm forward, expanding as it flailed across the ground at Troy. Troy leapt behind a nearby wooden wagon, crouching back again as the limb solidified again and flayed straight through the cart. Troy leapt upwards, cleaving through the tentacle. The end splattered against the ground, quickly evaporating into the air.

"Vast?..." Troy mumbled.

"More vast than you could ever imagine! This is one of the most savage Nobodies we have on our side! And... it hungers!"

"This looks nothing like a Vast but I can do damage to it just the same... what is a Nobody?"

"Oh, you might be blind to it now... but the answer is closer than you think!" Pokey raised his fist in the air. "For starters... I think you both have a lot of suffering to share!"

"What are you doing?" Valentina growled. "You can't possibly think of triggering that here! There's too many of them around! Who knows what kind of effect it could have? Besides... what's going to happen if it triggers his laten-"

"Reeeelax." Pokey muttered. "I've got this under control."

"Get on with it!" Troy yelled, hurling himself forward. "Otherwise your 'god' isn't going to be the only one losing limbs!"

"Good night, Troy."

Troy quickly found the energy sapped from his legs. He slowly stumbled to a stop, beginning to clutch his arm as pain shot through it. As he broke out in a cold sweat, he quickly noticed what was happening. He let go of himself, turning his palm around - where he had gouged it in the Koopa prison, blood was pouring out at an alarming rate. Troy's face went pale as the throbbing quickened, and the sensations worsened. Troy quickly found himself on his knees, his face contorting as it let out pained breaths.

Pokey was staring on with a satisfied grin. Valentina on the other hand was already busy backing away. "Ohh. You IDIOT. How are we going to handle him if he goes berserk?"

"Oh c'mon," Pokey grumbled. "You heard it straight from the boss, this twerp still shouldn't know how to handle a keyblade worth a crap..." the two glanced over as Troy's head slowly started to crane back up.

"...I... have something you want," Troy's head twitched as he spoke. "...but in... this case... you have something I want..." Troy let his mouth hang open, allowing drool to drizzle out the left side. "...BADLY."

"Grrr..." Pokey clenched his fists, glaring at Giygas. "That's supposed to keep him pacified! You dolt! What did you do to him?"

"Heheh... ha ha ha..." Troy's grimace grew wider, and as his face became fully visible, his pupils were fully dilated. "What you did to me?! Haaaa... what you did to me can't compare what I'll do TO YOU!!"

Troy became a blur.

* * *

Daisy stared dully at Peach. The guards behind her slowly backed away as Peach pulled a pocketwatch out of her pants pocket, with an emblem engraved on its front - the same as Troy's envelope had carried. Daisy nodded, sitting down on one of the palace lobby's couches. "...I'd wondered what would've compelled you to send a single person to carry the kind of message he did. You've been asking me all the way back to the palace, so I'll tell you... yes, Troy got here safely. He was a bit crude for a royal messenger, but he managed to get his point across well... I'd like to talk about this with you, but right now I'm totally wound up... you wouldn't want to go grab a sundae, would you?..."

Peach sulked, shaking her head sadly. "Daisy. You haven't changed a bit. I'd love to talk about what's happened in the Kingdom after all these years, but... we some urgent issues as you can probably tell."

"It's you in the flesh, right, but why'd you march all the way to Sarasaland without anyone else from the royal family, or any bodyguards, and why did you come out here dressed like that for that matter?"

"Troy's told you all about the Vast and the Keyblades, I imagine... well, everyone in the Kingdom is uptight about it as well... recently we've had some encounters of the third kind, if you catch my drift. A weird bird-man thing calling himself Sirius strolled straight into the offices of the Kingdom, telling us how to fight this Vast stuff that's been invading our world. Besides that, we've had reports from people in all positions of government, including Troy himself, that strange people have been attacking them, trying to find the keyblades for themselves. Now we're in a rut trying to get the keyblades into the right hands so we can defend the world from the Vast, but... as you can see, Sirius has been stretching our forces a little. The more pronounced the Vast threat becomes, the more control he gains over my father. I had to SNEAK out of the Mushroom Kingdom to get here."

"Will the Vast create as much internal conflict to this country as it did to yours?"

"I... I don't know." Peach stared off the side, letting her head droop some more. "...I know I don't have the authority to say this, as Sirius introduced us to the Vast and knows more about it than we do, but... I don't trust him. Right when he sent Troy all by himself to Sarasaland, I knew he was indiscriminately putting people at risk to fight this war. I had to come to Sarasaland myself to ensure that you caught word of what was happening with us if Troy wasn't able to. Sirius thinks that because we have two keyblades on our side and we've won a couple fights that he's got the Vast on the run. I can't believe that. I don't want you to believe that if you get your hands on a keyblade."

Daisy snapped her fingers. One of the guards returned, carrying the dormant keyblade out of a side room. Peach's eyes grew wide as Daisy rested it on her arms. "Troy convinced me to hold onto this, because it would light our way in the dark hours coming. I argued that we couldn't hang onto it if it would compromise the security of this nation. But if it's as potentially powerful as Troy says, we need to keep it as a guiding light and use it to assure our dominance - just like the pharoahs did."

Peach nodded.

"I remember when we were little and you always kept blabbing about how you always wanted to explore new worlds, and fill up that library back in the Mushroom Kingdom with knowledge no one else would ever find. Well, you look a little shaken up now."

"Are you kidding? This only cements what I always wanted to think was true," Peach shook her fists in front of her. "For once these 'other worlds' challenged us, and you think I'm going to hide and wait for it to pass me by? Once all this Vast crap is taken care of, I'm gonna track down all these other uninvited guests and start exploring those other worlds whether they like it or not! I think we can win against the Vast, and that's what's going to be driving me, I don't know about you!"

Daisy shook her head, snickering. "Nothing's going to make you throw away that dream, is it..."

"Not anymore. Not after what I've seen. That dream's indomitable, but now it's been proven right."

Peach reached forward, grabbing the hilt of the keyblade - she lurched back as it crackled in her hand, turning bright white and morphing before her eyes. The square hilt turned circular, and the shaft gained a golden sheen. The teeth at the top remolded themselves and folded inward to create three tips, one pointing up, one out to the side, and one pointing diagonally down - half of a five-tipped star.

**INVINCIBLE**

**Born from hope and burning resolve, the keyblade Invincible reinforces the mind and grants even greater courage to those who probably already have too much to be healthy, and bolsters the defenses of the wielder and all those around it - both mentally and physically. Pharaohs from thousands of years ago used the artifact to instill prosperity in their nations. The full potency of it as a weapon has likely never been seen...**

Daisy was far back in her seat, with her fingers digging into the couch cushions. "...when Troy said we'd be searching far and wide for the keyper, he wasn't kidding, huh?"

"...this can't be right." Peach raised the keyblade in the air, letting it swivel around in her grip. "...I can't believe this. Out of all the possible people that a keyblade could activate in front of... this one was leading me to it. I can't begin to describe how this feels..."

"Like you were chosen to be one of the people spearheading this defense from the worlds beyond," Daisy mumbled. "I bet that must sound real dramatic to you... but what's this supposed to mean? This was supposed to be Birabuto's defense against the Vast or whatever you people call it... and it ended up in the hands of the Mushroom Kingdom anyways. Now what am I supposed to do?"

Peach held out the keyblade as it glowed a bright purple. "Worry about that later, what am I supposed to do?"

Both of the princesses jumped back as one of the robed guards burst back into the lobby. "Y-your highness! You need to see this... you need to see this!"

"What's happening now?" Daisy strode to the entranceway, exiting into the light - a very purple light. Looking up, she stared slack-jawed into the sky. A gigantic purple dome of energy was rapidly washing down over top of the small city-state, causing small explosions of black smoke to appear in the distant air. "...this is dreadful... darkness was already beginning to flow into the city and we were all blind to it to start with!..."

"It's making some kind of protective field..." Peach continued to move the Invincible around in her hands. "If what you said is right and this thing's been sitting around Birabuto for thousands of years, it must've developed some kind of affinity for the people handling it..."

"It's always been a symbol of prosperity and peace... I suppose those are qualities it's taken on..." Daisy shuffled her feet in the sand, shaking her head. "I can only hope that this place has become at least a little safer now. We need to find Troy, maybe he can make some sense of what's going on here."

At once, the Invincible jerked up into the air, causing Peach to stumble towards it. It slowly started levitating down the street, picking up speed and dragging Peach with it. It pulsed with soft light, and Peach quickly found images flooding into her head. A deep voice floated out of the air, permeating both Daisy and Peach.

_"I am the sentinel that defends my allies... and I speak... there is a comrade in dire need..."_

Peach grit her teeth. "Troy..."

* * *

Pokey jumped back, thrusting his finger forward. The physical Giygas bobbed in accordance, continuing to stare forward with its gigantic eye. "That's right, Troy... just... sit there and grunt and groan some more, we're just gonna step in and snatch that keyblade and we can forget this ever happened. Giygas! More!" Pokey watched grimly as the eyeball on the humanoid blob continued to pulsate. A short distance away, Troy slumped along the ground, clutching his head with both hands.

"Stop it!" Valentina growled.

"Whoa, hang on, he should break any moment now."

"Break? More like snap. We had a chance to just attack him, and you had to play your stupid mind games. Now we're never going to be able to calm him down! We have to get out of here before he degenerates any further." Valentina started stepping back, pausing to glance around as the purple barrier rose around the city. "...what the hell? That looks like..."

"...it looks like Vast." Pokey looked over his shoulder. As he did, Troy's head snapped up, suddenly breaking free from Giyga's mental grasp.

"SURRENDER ITTTTT!!" Troy screamed. He brandished out his key again, vaulting across the sandstone walkway with blinding speed. In a split second he had raced straight through Giygas's field of vision, and froze for a moment behind Pokey. The wind roared as Troy spun, cleaving downwards at him. A reflex teleportation by Valentina whisked Pokey out of harm's way, leaving a white-hot section cleaved out of the ground where he once stood.

"You said Giygas was a powerful Nobody..." Valentina mumbled.

"W-well it is! Obviously!"

"...too powerful." Valentina finished.

"GET BACK HERE!!" Troy bellowed, drunkenly swinging the Chronicle around. The teeth on them were no more, the top half of the blade now mutated into a huge, jagged blade edge. "YOU HAVE THEM!! SO MUCH ESSENCE... BEAUTIFUL AND DELICIOUS!! LET ME DRINK!!"

"Don't just sit there!" Pokey yelled. "Attack!"

Giygas slid inbetween him and Troy, swiveling its torso. It threw itself back forward again, sending its 'arms' rocketing towards Troy. They shapeshifted in the air, suddenly gaining dozens of metallic razor blades along their surface. Troy held his weapon forward again, turning into a dervish as he threw dozens of slashes in front of him in a span of a mere second - the white sludge racing around him was obliterated, the sharpened chunks harmlessly raining to the ground around him. Giygas quickly regenerated what it had lost, throwing barrages of more slime at Troy. Troy began advancing, effortlessly cleaving through every single attack that was thrown at him. He stumbled for a moment as some of the sludge splattered over his keyblade. Moments later it detonated wildly, quickly consuming him in a massive fireball that sent shards of shattered rock flying. Pokey and Valentina shielded themselves from the flying dust, staring onwards in disbelief as Troy marched straight out of the napalm, not a scratch on him.

"YOU'LL GIVE IT TO ME NOW, YES?!" Troy's grimace stretched to the end of his face, causing more drool to fly off his lips as he spoke. Slowly he began his stride towards Pokey and Valentina, eventually breaking into a sprint.

"TROY!"

Troy ground to a halt, his face inches away from Valentina's face, which contorted from rapid breathing and was now a deathly white. Troy turned his hungry glare to the side, finding Peach wheezing as she rested against the side of a building. "Troy! This thing was freaking out trying to find you! What's going on here?"

Troy licked his lips, dropping to all fours and scuttling across the ground at lightning speed towards Peach. Peach's frown twisted as Troy began checking her from all sides, poking her and rubbing his hands at various areas on her torso. He sniffed meekly. "...THIS ONE WON'T DO AT ALL. ONE OF MY KIND, YES. NOTHING WORTH CONSUMING."

"...Troy?" Peach laughed nervously as Troy continued probing her.

She tensed up a little more as Troy planted his hand firmly on her rear.

Troy slowly began to pry his face off the ground shortly after taking a potentially lethal blow to his head from the Invincible. Eventually he crept back onto one knee, trembling as he looked at his surroundings again. He blinked, feeling a blur drape itself over his eyes. "...hkkk... gghhkkk..." He gradually began to see what was behind him - Pokey and Valentina hanging onto each other for dear life, shivering in fear as Troy's gaze met theirs. "...P-Peah..." he pivoted back around, staring up at Peach - who was giving him an equally terrified stare. "...Peach? Where am I?"

The icy jaws of unconsciousness found him moments later.

* * *

"WhooAAAaa!"

Troy catapaulted up, finding himself sitting in a bed. Everything he'd been wearing had been stripped except for his shorts. His head pivoted at a snail's pace to survey his surroundings. He was... back in the Mushroom Kingdom? This was the palace room he slept in. He raised his hand, grinding his palm into his forehead as a throbbing in his head settled in. He'd taken a nice, vicious blow to his temple, that he knew well - although for exactly what reason escaped him. He cautiously swung his legs over, shoving himself out of bed. As he hit his feet he wobbled uncontrollably, but eventually regained his balance. Limping over to the balcony door, he pulled it open and stepped outside, slumping down on top of the guardrail. Everything in the Kingdom was running as he had left it - maybe he'd been dreaming?

"About time you woke up."

Troy lurched to his side as he heard the voice, nearly toppling over the rail. He slid his back along it, turning to stare at Auron, who stood with his arms resting on the banister. "...sheesh, could you just ASK before you barge in here, I've got enough of a migrane without people trying to jump me."

"I apologize for that, but I needed to see how you'd handled getting beaten up in Sarasaland. How much of it do you remember?" Auron turned his shaded glaze upon Troy.

Troy shook his head, staring at his right hand. The wound still had a new coat of dried blood on it. "...I don't know. That woman and boy attacked me, and the boy had some kind of goo-looking golem with him. He called it gee-guhs. I don't know what came over me when he brought it to my attention... it just stared at me with its one eye. It was a cold stare, almost a sad one. But when I started gazing into it, something came over me... my sight and hearing became more focused than I could ever remember, and my adrenaline started pumping, but... I felt blind. I didn't have control over my own body, all I was concerned with was taking my keyblade and ripping them apart... I was hungry, hungry for something... but I don't know what."

"And then?"

"Peach distracted me. I rushed over to her, but my urge died down... whatever I was after, she didn't have it."

"Then she gave you a sound beating..." Auron turned away again. "...you were lucky. Blunt trauma wouldn't have put you out of commission if your attackers weren't as terrified as I hear. Peach's keyblade seems to endow her with some kind of restorative magic. It was it that knocked you unconscious, not the blow itself."

Troy moved up alongside Auron, slumping down on the guardrail in the same manner. "...how'd everyone react to Peach having a key anyways?"

"That hasn't been the topic of dicussion lately."

"Huh? What has then?"

"Birabuto has been surrounded entirely by a thin layer of Vast."

Troy shuddered. "...what? How's that possible?"

"Peach had used the keyblade to erect a barrier around the city. She brought the keyblade back to the Mushroom Kingdom claiming she wanted to do the same here, but Sirius became enraged at the idea. She argued back, saying the Vast had defended the city against a darkness that had already been filtering into the city."

"I'm getting more and more confused about the Vast, Sirius, the keyblades, everything..." Troy wheezed. "...I thought I'd reached the peak after that kid blabbed on and on about his Nobody. Hey, you wouldn't have any idea what a Nobody's supposed to be, do you? It's just more lingo relating to the 'darkness', isn't it? He said that I was going to 'share in the same suffering' as his blob-thing, whatever that's supposed to mean."

Auron flinched.

"Hit a nerve there did I?" Troy rolled his eyes.

"You said your hand started bleeding again?"

"Yeah, more than ever," Troy frowned. "The pain was just about blinding."

Auron suddenly pivoted in place, kneeling down and planting both his hands firmly on Troy's shoulders. "Troy, I'm going to be releasing some very confidential information to you now. Whatever you do, you CANNOT tell Sirius we had this conversation. Do you understand?"

"Uhh, okay, what's the deal?" Troy tilted his head.

"Earlier today, when you were attacked by this blob creature... Giygas, he broke into your mind and caused you a great deal of pain. These people that you encountered have a primal Nobody on their side. If you ever see Giygas again, you must RUN. You cannot attempt to fight a Nobody. If you do, they will cause you to go insane as you already did. Next time, you may not be so lucky as to have Peach intervene. Do I make myself clear?"

"The Vast and Nobodies are different entities?"

"Yes. I apologize if I'm being terribly vague here, but there are things about the Vast and the Nobodies that you are not ready to know."

"You're starting to sound like Sirius." Troy said flatly. "Wah wah wah, yes sir, I will stab the gooey things with my weapon, any other requests? Wah wah wah wah, walk all the way to Sarasaland by myself, safety be damned, okay then, wah wah wah... Auron, listen to me for one second!" Troy threw his arms down in front of him. "I'm more confused than I've ever been! I want to know what part I'm supposed to be playing in this stupid fight! I don't know what the Vast is, or the Nobodies, and what about that black crap the Vast repelled was! I know what you're thinking, Sirius is hiding things from us because if he spews out everything he knows, everyone is going to act on their own! But I need to... ARGH, I don't even know what I'm thinking anymore!"

"I think I do," Auron folded his arms. "You want to know what's happening to your world, but at the same time... you're afraid of what the truth could possibly be. You've seen people and places turned upside down in a matter of hours. Bowser turning into a merciless killer, this kingdom turned into a warzone as fighters from other worlds rampage through it, your friends being turned into martyrs of the keyblades, and yet... you yourself seem to be a constant target for alien forces you don't understand. This invasion has only begun, and you know this will only get worse. You are afraid of the extremes."

Troy nodded weakly. "That's right."

"Any battle can be won if you know your limitations and fight wisely. For now, I'm going to leave you with this." Auron reached under the collar of his duster, pulling out a thick bundle of papers - at an inch thick. "It was not easy obtaining this, but I believe I can trust you with it for now. Make sure nobody sees it, it could potentially cause widespread panic in the wrong hands."

"Looks like some heavy reading." Troy took the book in one hand, flapping its pages in the air.

"This is only one volume of many. Its original author stopped work on it a while ago, but since then some... aspiring researchers added their own recently-discovered content. Remember, Troy, no one can see what is in this text, especially-"

"Yeah, Sirius is a no-no, I get it already." Troy tucked the book under his arm, sitting down on one of the patio chairs on the balcony. Auron nodded at him, adjusting his spectacles before climbing over the balcony. "...thanks again, dude."

"I hope this makes you a little more comfortable with the challenges lying before you. Farewell." Auron let go of the rail, leaping down into the bushes below. Troy stopped to listen, hearing more rustling that eventually faded away into the distance.

"...I don't know what to say," Troy mumbled, staring off into the palace gardens. Moonlight brightened the entire field, making his sight clear as day. "...I wonder what would have happened if I walked up to Sirius and asked all the same questions I did just now... I'd probably just get another slap on the wrist and told to go whack more Vast... I wonder... exactly how far I can trust him..." he sighed, leaning back in the chair. He blew a layer of dust off the muddy brown tome in his hands, breaking it open to the first page.

On the back spine of the book, XIII could be seen in gold trim.

* * *


	6. Raise Thy Sword

Troy stared at the book a moment before opening it. Auron's gift was readily accepted by him in the hopes that he would finally learn a thing or two about the mysterious plague that had swept over his world - and eventually, everyone would be able to learn the truth and combat it accordingly. As he sat on the balcony and continued flipping the aged pages back and forth, however, his eyes became increasingly glued to the text therein, and before he knew it he had spent an entire three hours attempting to digest it. There was still a lot more to read. Much more. But the further he got into it, the more he realized exactly why it needed to be kept out of Sirius's hands...

**One week later...**

Selphie walked down the carpeted hall, shielding her eyes from the sun as it blared in through the pane glass on her left. The individual panels were nearly five times as tall as she stood. But even that itself was nothing compared to the looming entrance at the end of the hallway, with the emblem of the Mushroom Kingdom intricately carved in the dull, rippling mahogany that made up the door. She tugged at her beige cloth pants, grumbling as she planted her other hand on the portal. She was too accustomed at that point to her yellow blouse, but eventually it had to find its way to the wash. Her bundle of temporary clothing on the other hand was made of 'native fabrics' as Peach told her, but as far as Selphie knew the Mushroom Kingdom's 'native' legacy was producing the itchiest clothes imaginable.

She bashed her fist against the door several times. "Troy! This is going to be the seventh consectutive day you've spent staring at books! I know it's more productive than when you watched that four-day Dirk Drain-head marathon, but we're starting to get a little concerned! What do you do in there, anyways?"

Peach walked up from behind, staring over Selphie's shoulder. "He told me that he had some revolutionary discovery about the Vast and that he had to research it... which sounds like a load of crap to me, considering I've read every single book in this wing front to back. Oh well, if he wants to enrich his learning either way I'm not going to stop him..."

Selphie waited for a response but eventually found none. she pressed her ear up against the door, listening to papers flipping nonstop, only interrupted by loud thuds. Groaning, she grabbed onto the metal ring sticking out of one side of the door and slowly pulled it open, granting passage to the west wing library. Waiting for Peach to slump away, Selphie slowly began gripping the door handle more tightly. She eventually pulled it open, letting out a draft of cold air. She gradually crept into the expansive chamber - two bookshelves, reaching at least 30 feet tall, sat on opposite sides of a carved wooden table in the middle of the room. All the walls were shelves themselves. It would have been safe to assume that there were tens of thousands of handmade books stored in the grand hall. The ceiling directly over the table was made entirely of glass, casting intensified sunlight down onto the checkered floor below. None of this actually caught Selphie's attention however. It was more a matter of what the table actually consisted of.

Troy sat on the left side, still skimming through a tome several inches thick. Books of varying sizes, thickness and color were scattered all around the surface in front of him and on the floor around his chair; open, stacked, or both. Most were dog-earred at ten or more points. Selphie let out a dull wheeze, and Troy slowly lifted his head in response. Squinting through a pair of bloodshot eyes, he waved weakly. "Yo."

"...T-Troy? What are you doing..." Selphie's eyes floated over to a candlestick nearby, completely reduced a molten state and still smoldering. "...how long have you been at this?"

"Not long," Troy blurted, flipping his current book shut. Realizing what he had just did, he quickly hurled it back open again, thumbing through it to the page he had left off at and stuck a pencil in its place. "Just doing some research."

"I don't know about you, but if I have to research anything in school it usually takes me an hour or two tops. And if it takes any more than that, at least I have the decency to pass out slobbering."

"Well, what can I say," Troy pushed himself up to his feet, turning to face Selphie with his hands in the air. "The Vast are a very complicated subject."

"Sirius, what did you do with Troy?"

Troy let his arms drop to his sides weakly, rolling his eyes as he turned back to the table. "Yeesh. I show any sign of brain activity and suddenly my existence's threatened. What the crap does it look like I'm doing, I'm reading up on the Vast. There's things in here that I happened to find interesting. So sue me."

Selphie tilted her head. "Yeah, but... y'know, Peach's been through here a million and one times, I'm sure if there were anything in here that could help us beat the Vast she would've found it a long time ago."

She had everything here to explain everything... except this, the missing link.

"Never know if she could've skipped over something of importance..." Troy picked up the book nearest to him, breaking it open and burying his nose near its binding. "...okay, I know all this looks kind of funny to you, but I've matured enough to actually bother caring about what I can do against the Vast. Does that bother you?"

"Well, I..." Selphie blinked as she stammered. "...well I guess that's to be expected... I know it's a funny thing to ask, but... Mario and Luigi are getting a little antsy and Sirius has been too busy to grant them an audience, and..."

"That's what he always says," Troy droned, not letting his eyes waver. "What is it that they want to know, I'll see if I can dig anything up..."

"They want to know what drug them into this world, what they saw before they were sent here meant, and what they can do to get home."

"You originally said that you watched your friend get his hands on a keyblade and before you knew it, the storm consuming your island tore the place apart - not before you saw the 'black imps', as you called them, swarming all around you and him." Troy stared at Selphie with cold eyes. "I haven't forgotten... I think I might have a lead, but I just want you and the others to sit tight for a while... there's things that I have to see with my own eyes before I can draw conclusions." Troy paused as the library door rapped sharply again. "...ugh... can you get that?"

Selphie made her way back across the open chamber, and pulled open the giant door a crack. "Oh, it's just Sirius... c'mon in Sirius."

Troy let out a cough as he quickly jumped onto the table and began throwing books in a heap on one side - making sure to leave Auron's book at the very bottom. He spun around as Sirius threw the door open, marching ahead of Selphie as they both crossed back to Troy's table.

"I should've known better than to expect you to read a damned book. Quit making a mess, Peach and I read these books often and she would not appreciate you throwing them all over the place. There are some rare and exotic books in this collection and even if they were not Peach's, I would make sure that they are kept in mint condition. You can get out of here now, I was coming to look over some of the physics texts of this world, but I guess I'll take care of all this-"

"N-n-no, that's okay!" Troy waved his arms frantically. "The math and science books are on the west wall over there... you can head over there and start browsing, I'll clean all this up..." Troy waited for Sirius to stroll behind the bookcase to his left before jumping back down to the floor and shuttling armloads of books back to the empty shelves directly adjacent to him. Within minutes the table and the floor surrounding it was barren once more, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he held the last brown book in front of him. It was at that time that he finally noticed Selphie standing exactly where she was moments before, with a far more confused look on her face. "Ohh... this? This contains plans for every plastic-explosive based prank ever recorded in archived history! I'm taking it back to my room so I can look at it more tonight, and-"

"Oooh! Can I look at it for an hour or so now then? Pleeeease?"

"Actually no I'll talk to you later bye." Troy planted his free hand firmly against Selphie's face and pushed her back into the shelf. It shook for a moment before dozens of books toppled out of it, burying her up to her neck with a thunderous crash.

Troy calmly walked out of the room, whistling to himself as he tucked the tome under his arm. He checked down the hall to make sure no one else had saw what he did before strolling away.

"You CREEP!!" Selphie wretched around for a moment, freeing one of her arms before the library doors crashed closed behind Troy.

It didn't take long for Troy to sneak his way back to his room, narrowly avoiding several small groups of the mushroom retainers as he crossed through the endless corridors and open yards in the palace - it'd never occured to him exactly how many employees serviced the castle until they were getting in his way. Troy quickly rose up the stairs to the third floor of the west wing, darting down the hall to the door leading into the spare bedroom assigned to him. He quickly barged in and slid the book under his bed, looking over his shoulder to find an envelope taped to the back of the door. He grumbled to himself as he reached for it and tore it away, ripping off the top with his teeth. A rough parchment floated out, and Troy began reading the envelope as he knelt down to pick up the scrap of paper. "...Troy, you're likely not going to wake up until 4pm again so you're more likely to see this leaving your room than coming in, but I've received another message from the representatives of the Koopa Kingdom, hopefully you can resolve whatever they want done, blah blah blah..." Troy's focus shifted to the paper. "...what the... oh, you have got to be kidding me... why can't they just suffer through it until I can justify a 4 hour drive there?..."

He looked out the window, seeing Bowser's toothy grin in the clouds.

"...well, on the other hand..." Troy rubbed his chin. "...if I let Bowser and his flunkies look at the book, they'll know everything I do and get a better idea of what they're up against, and everything that Bowser announces to the Mushroom Kingdom goes through me anyways, especially anything concerning the invaders. That way I don't have to worry about them leaking anything to the King here and Sirius won't notice a thing. I guess I'll go have a chat with him."

Sirius's eyes continued gazing through the library window, eventually fixating on Troy's buggy as it rolled out of the palace grounds.

* * *

**NSX: Chapter 6**

**Raise Thy Sword **

* * *

"What do you think he's doing?"

Luigi kept his hands on the windowsill, but let his head dip back underneath it. "I can't tell. He just came in... it looked like he was talking to someone, and then he went back to the same chair he always uses." he squinted his eyes. His foothold shook. Directly beneath him, Mario clutched the bottom of his brother's boots in each palm, struggling to stand rigid.

"No, like, what books are he looking at..." Mario grunted. "...c'mon, I can't keep this up, YOU hold me up, you're the bigger one here."

"Vertically anyways. Hang on. The sun's getting in his eyes." Luigi's eyes crept upwards. Eventually he could see Sirius shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably. He raised the text he was looking at, eventually keeping it parallel with his eyes. "...Articles in Classical Physics? What the crap does he need to know about physics..." Luigi shuddered as Sirius slowly rose from his seat... and began advancing in his direction. "DOWN! DOWN NOW-"

The two toppled backwards. Luigi was promptly suplexed into the ground behind him.

"All that work for nothing..." Mario grumbled as the two slowly climbed back to their feet. He looked up as he dusted himself off, watching the now-drawn blinds glistening in the light. "...there's something weird about that guy... we just have him slipping out of our hands at every turn. He's oiled up good, that's for sure, everything he does leaves him out of the palace's surveillance."

Both ran forward again at the sound of a deafening snarl behind them, plowing facefirst into the wall.

"EXCUSE me, sirs," Wooster continued yanking hard on the ripcord of a push lawnmower right behind them. "I do try to maintain this lawn to the best of my ability, and as you two are only guests of our nation, I will not hesitate to report your vandalism to the proper authorities."

"Do you know what Sirius is doing in there?" Luigi sighed, rubbing his nose.

Wooster threw his arms up in disgust. "Don't ask me. I don't stick my nose into other peoples' business. That's what housekeepers get fired over. If you seek to harass Sirius so badly, why don't you just walk into the library and question him yourselves? Of course, I can see why a man in this times would want nothing more than to be able to shut himself into a large, warm, PRIVATE, comforting room and sit down with a good book and a bottle of fine wine..."

"Hmm..." Mario rubbed his chin, eventually reaching down and snapping his fingers. "That's it."

"What's up, bro?"

"We gotta harass him," Mario said sternly. "He doesn't like to be roused over trivial things, but if we complain and complain and complain about him not watching over and properly training the Keypers, we might be able to get some alone time with him. 'course he'll be as easy to court as pizza dough in a meat locker, but maybe we can stir him up if it's a matter of a Vast compromise."

Luigi nodded, and the Alastor flashed into his grip. He reached back, stuck his tongue out, and hurled it straight through the library window as hard as he could. Wooster stared on in horror as the pane glass window exploded into a million pieces. Moments later Sirius slammed his hands down on the lower sill, crushing what remained of the rigid glass even more with his massive claws. He stared down at the three with a cold expression on his face. "What is the MEANING of this?!"

Luigi stared at Sirius with a dull expression on his face. "...I was practicing trying to make that lightning and stuff come out of my hands, and I guess I got a little too much into it... as you can see."

"What are you even doing over here?" Sirius scowled. "You have a whole damned front yard to do that in!"

"The sun was getting in our eyes." Mario interjected.

"The sun is facing this way you morons!" Sirius shot back.

"I can personally assure you that there are many more valuable windows in the front." Wooster added.

Mario shot Wooster an annoyed glance as Luigi stepped forward again. "To be honest, Sirius, I haven't had much hands-on experience with the Alastor and I'd like it if you gave me a few pointers. If you could actually teach me and Peach how to use the blades properly like you did with Troy I'm sure we'd be bigger assets..."

"What Troy discovered was his own experience and his alone." Sirius barked.

"How about you just SHUT up, get OUT of the castle and make YOURSELF useful for once."

All four became silent for a moment.

"If I may be perfectly honest," Wooster shoved Mario and Luigi out of the way. "Now that the princess has obtained a keyblade of her own, she as well may be bringing these questions to your attention. And when that time comes, you would do well to answer them - she has offered you much of her hospitality, and if you do not do these favors for her... she shall take more offense to it than these two buffoons."

"Why are you..." Mario hissed.

"I can hope Sirius will take you somewhere to train where I don't have to look at you." Wooster spun on his heels, going back to his lawnmower.

"...very well," Sirius snarled. "As it seems I am obligated to eventually dispense what I know... I will be taking you and the princess with me in an hour so that you may see what the keyblades are potentially capable of... I'll make sure to bring Troy as well, they should see what he has learned..."

"Troy headed out this morning. He got a letter from the Koopa Kingdom saying that they needed some stray Vast cleaned up. I'm sure he should be back by tomorrow." Wooster mumbled before the lawnmower roared to life and belched out a cloud of black smoke.

"Who authorized this?!" Sirius slammed his fists down again.

"Troy most likely."

Mario and Luigi winced as Sirius stormed back into the library behind him. Mario glanced up at Luigi, drawing a finger across his throat. "Geez louise, you got his attention alright. Just remember that whatever you learn is moot to us if he decides to rip your head off moments later.

* * *

Dark Land's winds howled, sending dust flying in every direction around Last Chance Ramparts. Three Koopa guards struggled turning the crank that slowly pried the fortress gates open. As a gap began to form, light poured in out of the dust cloud that threatened to whisk away everyone not holding onto something. Before the entrance could become any larger, Troy's buggy smashed through, clipping the sides of the wooden doors and sending splinters flying. Troy turned sharply to the right, sliding to a stop in the middle of the courtyard. He vaulted out of the driver's seat and strode up the dirt ramp ahead of him that lead to the doors of the main fortress. As he did, another green-shelled Troopa with a white cord tied around its waist ran up alongside him.

Troy looked over his shoulder at his pursuer. It was female. "What's going on here?" Troy muttered.

"Not much," the grunt quickly threw up a poor salute. "Most if not all of the Troopas that were in the core that was supposed to attack the Mushroom Kingdom earlier... they've been shipped away again to get all our sludge plants back up to regular output levels. We are beginning to make progress though, our first shipment to the Mushroom Kingdom should be ready in just a few days, and-"

"Okay. That's wonderful." Troy ground to a halt, turning to face the soldier. "I received a note this morning saying that there was Vast here for me to investigate. That's the primary reason I'm here, and if I don't sort this out pronto and get back to the Mushroom Kingdom shortly my butt will be in a sling. Now, where's Bowser, I need to speak with him."

"Bowser's been shut away in his quarters for almost a week now," the Troopa said flatly. "He's been in deep meditation for a long time now."

"Oh, what the crap. What's so important that he has to plug his ears and la-la-la his cares away?"

"Well, uh... what I'm going to tell you is on a more personal note, 'ight? If anyone knows I said this I could be removed from my post."

"Just. SAY it." Troy sighed.

"...I've heard people saying that a few days after he returned to the Ramparts and sent out his condolence packages to a few people in the military and the Mushroom Kingdom itself... actually didn't you get one Troy?"

Troy tapped the back of his shell.

"Oh WOW! You got one of those? Those shells were given out to Bowser's own private guard during the first weeks of the Koopa Troop's conception! There's got to be less than a dozen of those in existence... Bowser must hold you in high regard to give you one of those, people say that the alloy plating on those is ten times tougher than the ones they usually give to recruits! I've got to say, that's really a..."

"Carry on." Troy sighed, looking away.

"...w-well, anyways... after he patched up whatever he'd undone, he just threw himself in his private chambers. He'd come out for bathroom breaks of course, but other than that... he would issue his orders through the door, and never reveal himself if someone requested his presence. He was hiding from someone or something. Anyways, here's the kicker. Apparently there's a rumor going around that Bowser brutalized one of his own medics while his battalion was camped outside of Toad Town. Raised his claw up... smashed it down. Ripped him into ribbons and pounded what was left into jelly."

"Ragh!..." Troy's right arm snapped up, and he used his other hand to clutch it.

"Are you alright?" the Troopa stared at what she saw with wide eyes.

"I guess I just..." Troy let his arm go. The gouge on his hand had spread - it nearly consumed his entire palm, and blood slowly dripped off it and onto the ground beneath him. "...ergh... just.. I can take care of myself... Bowser should know that I came, do you think he can at least tell me what I need to do here, or did he leave me a message, or what?..."

"I'm going to get some bandages... just give me a sec." the Troopa turned, jogging back to a large square tent near the gate. She rustled around in it for a moment before rushing back out to Troy. She unwound a thick white cloth from a large roll of it, tying it firmly around Troy's hand and grafting it in place with medical tape. "Did you get that on your way here? It looks like you drove something right through your hand..."

"I nicked my hand on a piece of metal left in the castle dungeons back before the invasion... it bled a little at first but after that... it didn't hurt. Now and then it'd randomly start gushing and hurting like crazy. Other than that... it's been pretty insignificant. I figured it'd just heal back on its own if I put enough pressure on it. I didn't realize it had been getting worse..."

"You're taught better than that in boot camp." the medic frowned, slapping a hand down on Troy's shoulder. "Let me know when you intend to leave. I just need to see how bad that wound on your hand is. I might need to clean it out and replace the bandage."

"That's great to know. Now..." Troy gingerly lifted the hand off his shoulder. "Can you tell me what I want to know?"

"Bowser has more than 90 of the first sludge shipment to the Mushroom Kingdom barreled up and ready to go. But since the sludge platforms have been under constant threat of Vast infusions, he said to make sure that you get here to perform the final inspections and make sure none of it goes out with the delivery. He says that if that if the Vast gets into the Mushroom Kingdom, the results could be-"

"He drug me out here because there was a POSSIBILITY of Vast?" Troy cried. "For all that's holy... I don't know if Bowser realizes it, but the Mushroom Kingdom and everything around it ALSO has a pretty high chance of getting slapped with Vast at any given moment, not to mention that every time I step out of my room some other freak wants to tear me limb from limb and/or steal that sparkly magical keyblade that I STILL don't know anything about. Well, take me to the sludge storage then, I guess I'm stuck doing that now... Sirius is going to rip me a new one if he finds out I snuck out of the palace just to play customs officer for a day."

"Right this way," Troy's companion bowed, leading him away to the left. A dirt road lead off towards a building of similar size and construct as the castle, but far less elaborately designed - it had obviously been a storage building far earlier than its owners had begun putting volitile chemicals in it. "I understand that you've been extremely busy in the Mushroom Kingdom, and you've been doing your best to paint a positive picture of us... we'll just get this over with and you can return to what you were doing."

"Whoa whoa. We? I don't think you understand exactly what you could be dealing with." Troy moved up to a pair of heavy iron doors, wrapping his hand around the left's handle. "People go insane when they come in contact with this crap. I've seen it happen before. Bowser's rumor has a good chance of being true. You're going to go back to your station and let everyone know you didn't see me, because having one overeager fan club member following me around is bad enough."

"How did you knowwww..." she sulked.

"Know what..." Troy paused, breathing in.

"About the fan club."

"...what are you saying, do you mean..."

"My name's Maple, I'm the vice-president."

Troy let his head bang against the door. "All the greater motive to get out of here."

"O-okay, just let me squeeze in here and get this gate open..." Maple dug under her collar, taking out a keyring. She slowly began sorting through the odd-dozen sigils on the ring before Troy calmly pulled the door open. "...huh? How did you get that open?"

"By using the power of high-school physics." Troy shut the door and pulled it open again. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No, I mean... this building's supposed to be locked at all times. Everyone knows how important it is that all these barrels go to the right place, and just moving them around the fortress grounds is hazardous by itself..."

Troy grit his teeth and hurled open the door. He stormed inside, finally seeing the storehouse's contents. Several multi-layer racks stretched to the back of the room, with unmarked dark green drums stacked neatly to the edges. Troy stuck his arm out in front of Maple as he began to step forward. A single drum rolled out on its side towards him. As Troy began to close the gap, an ebony-armored boot slammed down on top of it, holding it in place.

"Go." Troy shoved Maple back.

"Who is he? Do you know him? I'll notify the guards right away-"

"Go back to your post. Forget everything you saw here. This is my concern. I'm unsure if you have any guards that can stand up to him."

Maple stared back and forth between the behemoth and Troy, eventually backing away and running back out the way she came.

"Oh. I apologize, I hope I haven't interrupted anything of importance," Nightmare's veined eyes were visible through his visor briefly. "I understand I've made a bit of a mess here... but I have to say, my armor is a bit worn and oil is hard to come across in this corner of the world. As for you... I see my prior warnings went unheeded. Still you wander outside of the protection of your damned Kingdom, claiming to surpass the darkness that already envelops this world."

"I don't recall saying that." Troy said sternly.

Nightmare stepped back to the ground, kicking the barrel away. Even though it held tens of gallons of thick liquid, it harmlessly bounced off to the side from the impact. "Perhaps you hadn't. One thing that you and I can be certain of, however, is that you are reckless. You believe that all you have to worry about is this mindless Vast of yours. It seems you need a bit of a... reminder. Auron was kind enough to, how should I put this, make your whereabouts more public than you yourself thought. I won't be coy here, I don't have an idea of where Auron could have run off to, but right now I have you right where I want you... and this time you won't have the benefit of the doubt."

Troy shook his head weakly. "Auron wouldn't have done that."

"Are you so sure now? It's one thing to not know where your loyalties lie and thus not have one, it's another to hold the wrong one closest to your heart. The chaos surrounding you is only picking up in speed, whelp. Perhaps you'd like me to end it for you?" Nightmare stuck out his hand, and in a flash of hazy purple light, the massive Souledge appeared in his grip.

"Oh, this time I'm not so sure of what exactly is ending." Troy held his arm out in front of him, summoning Chronicle to his hand in response.

"Your boasting has improved at the very least." Nightmare said coldly.

"I was about to say the same thing myself. Now, before you make cold cuts out of me, let's make one thing clear. You know last time when you said that you didn't necessarily need Vast in you to have dark thoughts? Well, I can say without a doubt that you're not Vast after all. I know that you could be a couple other things. And after some careful deduction on my part, I can tell what your guts are." Troy's keyblade gave off an unearthly glow. "You're a Nobody."

"Oh, this should be a good day for you to die," Nightmare hunched down, clasping his blade with both hands. "A shocking revelation on your behalf I take it. I congratulate you, Keyper... such a pity that you take such wit with you to the grave. What does that mean now however?"

"It means only one Nobody will be walking out of here in one piece."

* * *

Sirius let his heavy legs crash down into the grass. He stared up into the sky as Mario, Luigi and Peach all stopped several feet behind him. They left the city behind them, and now stood poised on one of the largest hills outside of the walls. Sirius turned and glanced at the three one more time, before he faced away again and sat down crosslegged. "You're all quite good at blackmail. Now that you've gotten me outside, as you insist, what do you intend to demand of me?"

"We want to know everything that you do about the keyblades." Peach said sternly.

"What's there to know? They are your first line of defense against the Vast." Sirius looked over ihs shoulder. "I'm sure we've been over this before."

"Well, you've been acting pretty passive since we found more people bearing Keys. I think Troy, Luigi and I are due for some explanation. You came here, took command of our government, and you claim that we're the only forces that can stop it or at least slow it down. Yet... you have no problem shutting yourself in your room and doing some pleasure reading while we're getting chased around by these beasts. You haven't actually explained Troy's situation in Sarasaland to us. I think that you're either clueless or concealing information. And I know how much you love being called clueless."

"I saw what your intentions were in your eyes. And I'll give you the same response I give to any of your inquests. The truth you seek so badly, you are not ready for."

"You think what I've witnessed have been nothing but parlor tricks?" Peach's tone grew increasingly agitated. "You know, there's one thing that I've noticed in your entire time here, Sirius. You've done nothing but talk about the Vast and its corrupting effects... but not once have I seen in direct proximity to it." Peach slowly reached down to her pocket, fumbling around in it for a moment before drawing something from it. She watched with satisfaction as Sirius's expression turned cold.

"...how? What... how did you get that?!" Sirius clumsily stumbled back to his feet, spinning back to face the three. He began backpedaling as he saw what was Peach held in front of her. "G-get it away!! Do you have any idea what that could do to me... I mean, what it could do to you?!"

"Just as I thought. I know your weakness." Peach held the corked vial of purple liquid in front of her, tipping it around and letting the sludge move from side to side. "You are just as weak to the Vast as we are. I managed to catch this little bit sneaking up on me while I was out Birabuto. Remember that dome that the Invincible surrounded Birabuto with? That was Vast. The keyblades that Troy and I carried granted us safe passage through. Not before I used the opportunity to get a sterile sample of the stuff, that is. Tell me, Sirius, if we're getting the keyblades to stop the Vast, how can I use the keyblades to literally control it at will?"

"Hang on hang on hang on." Mario stepped forward. "...Troy told me that SIRIUS told him that he can only use the keyblade to destroy what he truly wills. Are you saying that the keyblades can just maniuplate it? Why are we all so scared of it then?"

"Shut up and listen to me!" Sirius yelled. "I told you that the Vast are invading. Tell me, is that or is it not the truth? Bowser had been corrupted by it! There is your concrete evidence right there that what the Vast is something that should be stopped!"

"Or was it the Vast at all?" Peach stepped closer to Sirius. "We managed to contact the Koopa Troop earlier and got the exact coordinates Bowser's camp was pitched at the time he went insane. I knew that if 'invaders' had caused it that they would have left a trail. I found what caused it, alright. And guess what? It was a mixture of THIS and something else. Why are you here, Sirius? Are you looking for somewhere to stick your head in the sand to get away from this? Because I assure you, we're the ones suffering for it. Now you're going to sit down and tell us everything you know. What is this purple crap, what is this black crap, what is this white crap, how are the keyblades involved, who are the bad guys, who are the good guys, and how can we get ourselves out of this mess?!"

"...b-black?" Sirius stammered. "...white?! Where did you find this?"

"Where she told you. Shut up and talk," Mario growled. "You know way more than you're telling us. We want to know, why are these people and entities coming down on us? There are people here who are direct victims of this! When and how are we going to return home?"

"...the keyblades have chosen you to fight."

"We DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT!" Luigi moved forward in response. "We want to know WHY, and when it will end!"

"That's something I don't know."

"Then tell us what you do! Why are you hiding everything from us?! You're endangering everyone around you including yourself! What is so horrifying that we can't deal with?!" Peach cried.

Sirius stepped forward, nearly plowing through the three. "I am an agent of NSX."

"An agent of what?" Peach grumbled.

"The Vast and Heartless cannot be allowed to enter this world. I failed to enforce that fact countless times before. That is what I mean to say when many worlds have fallen. I haven't explained the Heartless because I didn't realize that they had become a factor."

"You never explained the Vast to start with." Luigi mumbled. Mario jabbed an elbow into his side.

"I cannot accurately begin to describe the effects of having one, either or both fused into you. I'm sure you've seen the effects it has had on people around you. Please listen to me, you have to-"

"This has gone on long enough," Peach interrupted. "If you think we're just going to take an apology and a pat on the back and welcome you back into my home with open arms, you've got another thing coming. Apparently I've managed to dig up more than you thought I could, so I'm going off the assumption that now with the keyblades we're going to be making great strides to figuring out what is going on here. You're still going to be giving us some tips... but you're going to be doing it on our terms. I am ordering you to be imprisoned until further notice."

"Do you honestly think you can contain me?"

"Maybe not," Peach smirked. "But the Vast can."

Sirius's eyes grew wide Peach smashed the vial against the ground. It snaked across the ground, building up dome of purple energy around him with an accompanying electronic hum. He let out dry gasps as he stumbled around inside, eventually falling to the ground and shielding himself. "You don't know what forces you are toying with!"

Mario and Luigi both stared at Peach, slackjawed. "...are you sure we can just leave him like this?" Luigi gasped.

"Don't worry," Peach stared into Sirius's eyes. "He's got to break sooner or later. I will order guards to watch over this area. Sirius, I hope you understand what measures you've made us take. I think it's time that we, as residents of this world, took this matter into our own hands. Maybe we DO have the answers that you can't spit out. I don't know who these NSX people are, but I WILL find out, mark my words."

"...I am here to preserve the balance of this world. That is my mission." Sirius added.

"You're not doing a good job of it."

"The Vast and Heartless will change you in ways you cannot begin to comprehend."

"The Nobodies. What about the Nobodies?" Peach suddenly moved closer to the orb of energy.

"The Nobodies," Sirius repeated. "...you need not worry about the Nobodies... fighting them will do more harm than good, in more ways than one..."

"I'm sick of all this cryptic crap, as I'm sure you two are. Let's get back to the castle. I don't want to give this creep the satisfaction of wasting any more of my time."

Mario and Luigi watched as Peach spun around and marched off. As soon as she had descended a bit, the two turned back to Sirius.

"We will get home," Mario said flatly. "It's only a matter of knowing how."

"Trusting the keyblades to such fools..." Sirius shook his head, laughing harshly. "Do you know how many worlds have fallen this way? When you lose every last shred of your sanity to these aliens, you will weep for having thrown away your possible salvation..."

"Okay, even I'm getting a little freaked out now..." Luigi rubbed his forehead. "Let's get out of here."

Sirius did little but watch as what remained of his audience vanished. He slowly pushed himself up onto his knees, his mouth folding into a furious frown. "Fools. Fools!... FOOLS!!"

* * *

Troy's heartbeat nearly drowned out the crashes of Nightmare's armor as watched the dark knight hurtle at him. Nightmare let out a guttural yell as he whirled in place, holding his zweihander behind his head before cleaving downwards at his target. Troy dodged right towards the ground, avoiding the decapitating blow by a thread. Troy pivoted as he moved around Nightmare's left side, ducking under the blunt edge of the sword as Nightmare continued full circle. What he didn't take in mind however was the fact that Nightmare waS facing him again - Nightmare stopped his attack, thrusting himself forward and bashing Troy back with the side of the blade. The heavy blow made Troy stumble back a solid ten feet, but he still retained his balance. Troy took a deep breath, knocking a fist against the front of his shell. "Just like they used to make them."

Troy leapt up before charging back. He crouched, spinning on his heel with his blade extended. Nightmare bounded forward to slash down from above, but felt his foot shift as the sound of ripping metal. The teeth of the Chronicle tore into the drum lying on the ground, sending oil spraying in every direction. Troy howled as he used every ounce of momentum he had to sling the full oil drum across the chamber at Nightmare. Nightmare had no choice but to continue his vertical slash in order to defend himself - the canister exploded aparty wildly as his blade ripped through its side, sending a deluge of sludge out onto the ground. Nightmare growled, wiping the grime off his armor as Troy quickly discarded his shoes. He flexed the claws on his feet before letting out a satisfied sigh.

"Being grossed out is not one of my weaknesses." Nightmare said cooly.

"The Koopas don't use oil for burning. They use it for therapy." Troy cracked his neck and gradually slouched down. "Being grossed out isn't one of my weaknesses either... it's one of my strengths."

"I see you're getting serious. As serious as you can become at the very least. I will not hold back!" Nightmare lunged forward again, moving at blinding speed across the otherwise slickened floor. Troy began moving forward as well - but as Nightmare quickly realized, he wasn't running. Nightmare shifted his blade into one hand, flailing it to the side in front of him. Troy leant back at the knees, completely sliding underneath his attack, and all the way under his legs. As Nightmare turned and slid to a stop, Troy kept on going, vaulting onto the back of his shell and spinning into the wall. He planted his feet against the wall and pushed off, shooting across the sludged ground even faster than before. Nightmare had no chance to strike him directly, much less actually track him. He let out a dull grunt as he felt one leg being pulled out from under him. Troy's keyblade dug into one of his greaves and caused him to slingshot around back to where he came, sending the armored night flying off his feet in the process. Nightmare cast his arm out as he quickly clambered back to his feet, summoning the Soul Edge back to his grip. Troy in the meanwhile regained his original posture, skating backwards towards the wall. He leapt up, twisted, and pressed off the wall again - this time sending him rocketing through the air at Nightmare proper. Troy bellowed out as he slashed downwards. Nightmare barely caught the attack with his own blade, causing a brief struggle before Nightmare hurled Troy over his head along with the Soul Edge. Troy landed back on his feet, grinding to a stop as Nightmare spun around once more.

"RrrrRRRGHHH!!" Nightmare's eyes burned even brighter than before. "I would never have imagined that you would become so annoying..."

"Aren't all officers of the law that way?" Troy swung his blade back down in front of him again, running at Nightmare again. The sludge by now was quickly dissiapating into the dirt beneath him, and his advantage was quickly disappearing.

"Your agility will not outlast me..." Nightmare held his sword out to his side, and it vanished into thin air the same way it had came. Energy crackled around his gauntlets, and he hunched down with his fists at his side as Troy intercepted him. He launched forward again, throwing a hook straight into Troy's face - who had been more eager to have slow sword strikes to evade. Troy growled as the attack struck him straight in the face with an echoing crack, sending him flying back hard against the wall. His shell again protected against what would been a far more lethal blow... the wall he crashed into. Cracks began to form in the brick behind him as Troy stumbled forward again. He leant forward, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Again Nightmare rushed him, throwing another energy-charged punch into the front of his shell - Troy would not feel the blow directly, but it rattled him enough to disorient him even more. "NOW! You will surrender your keyblade... or you will truly know what agony is!"

"Agony!" Troy coughed. "Don't even get me started."

Nightmare slammed his right hand forward and pinned Troy against the wall. He wound up with his free fist, purple energy coursing across it as he hurled it forward at Troy's head once again. Troy simply grimaced as he slid down out of the deathgrip and the death fist pummeled its way straight through the wall behind him. As Nightmare tried to free his hand from the stone, Troy dove rolled down between his legs again and tumbled into one knee. As he did so, his arm followed his movements - and the Chronicle with it. One mighty cleave of the blade phased through his upper right thigh. Troy watched, breathing raggedly, as Nightmare continued to try to pry his hand out of the wall. Eventually he did, and Troy watched grimly as Nightmare turned slowly to face him yet again.

"...how naive," Nightmare spat. "How long do you intend to run?"

"As long as I stay greased up." Troy wiped some of the sludge off his face. "...are you still worried about chasing me? How about the blows I struck to you?"

"Your meaningless assault, hm..."

"Well?"

"I... I... ghh..." Nightmare began to tremble as his helmet slowly began to lower. He stared down at his waist. "...ghhaaaa... youuu... how did you..."

"How did I hit you there?" Troy slowly began to push himself back to his feet, wobbling as he stumbled backwards onto his feet. "...all I had to do was harass you and whack you here and there... to make it look like I was trying to break through your armor. Then when you were sure I would never beat through it... I did. When you tried to kill me a few days ago, I attacked and realized your armor wasn't physical at all. I had to figure out what was underneath before I could strike through and actually harm you. Thanks for confirming you were a Nobody, by the way."

"You insolent-" Nightmare cast his mutated arm to his side, ripping through a series of leather straps with it. Troy stepped back as his massive hauberk crashed to the ground around him, beginning to gape. The corruption along his arm stretched all the way down to his torso, darkening his chest with rot. Nightmare reached up again, ripping his helmet off. Long blonde hair flowed down his back as he hurled the winged helmet to his side. "...well, since you insist this armor is hindering me so, now you must deal with losing your advantage!" He looked up once more, revealing the light shining from behind his bloodshot eyes. "Your wounds will need to be more drastic if you wish to stop me outright!!"

"Maybe I should have waited for him to actually beg for mercy before assuming I knew what I got myself into." Troy said flatly. The wind howled as Nightmare flew at him with superhuman speed, slamming his plated knee into Troy's head. Troy lost his breath as he heard a liquid flow, shortly before crashing straight through the wall behind him. He tumbled across the parade ground of the Ramparts, grinding facefirst to a stop. Troy forced himself to roll over, only managing to see Nightmare plunging down through the air after him. The massive bloodied blade appeared in his hands once more as he prepared to deliver his catastrophic vertical slash. Troy slammed a clenched fist into the ground as he realized what was happening. "No! NO way! This is like Bowser's... wait, this is EXACTLY like when Bowser... the Chronicle... I can..."

Troy closed his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could, hearing the wind shift once more and Nightmare's scream reflect back at him.

Once again, everything stopped.

Troy vaulted back onto his feet, pivoting and looking around in panic. "Where is it, where is it, where is it..." he looked up, finding Nightmare mere feet above him. The edge of his zweihander was inches away from Troy's head. Troy cast his hand back, and the doors of the sludge depot flew open again. The Chronicle drug itself along the dirt, bouncing from side to side occaisionally. Finally it launched back into Troy's hand and he spun it behind his back. With every ounce of force left in him, he thrust it straight through Nightmare's bare chest. He clenched both free fists, slamming them into both sides of the Chronicle's hilt from opposite directions - turning it into a high-speed drill. Troy threw himself out of the way as everything around him returned to life. Nightmare's face turned white as he slammed facefirst into the ground, the keyblade in him completely ripping through his torso. Troy clutched his side as his vision began to blur. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off and his head trauma was beginning to settle in. Troy couldn't keep himself conscious much longer.

Nightmare drove his hand into the ground, shuddering as he pushed himself up. "Uggrrhhhh..." he slowly pushed himself up to his knees before jerking forward to vomit. "How did you... move... get out of the way so fast... how did you strike with that precision?!... what has that keyblade done to you? This is not meant to be... this is not over, mark my words! I've underestimated you this time, but I will not make that mistake again!" Nightmare gradually began to ascend to his feet, clutching his chest as he jogged away. A white void appeared in the air in front of him. Nightmare shot one final raging glance back to Troy before hurling himself inside. Troy limped after him, but sighed as he watched the gate fold in on itself.

"...and stay out." Troy smirked and let out a dull groan before collapsing back into the dirt.

* * *

Maple watched as a baseball-sized ball of white paste fell out of the air and landed with a dull plop in the cracked bowl in front of her. She nodded to the Troopa holding to spoon and lifted her tray off of the rail in front of her. Slowly she worked her way through the other cafeteria tables of other soldiers wolfing down the gruel, tilting her head as she spotted one in the corner with a paper bag over its head. It prodded at the slop in front of it, turning to look at the other tables occasionally through a pair of holes punched in the front. Maple sat down at the otherwise empty table next to it. "You look ridiculous like that." She reached over, grabbing onto the top of the bag and yanking it off its head.

"Stop that." Troy muttered, snatching it back. "I can't be seen here."

"Well it's too late for that. I thought you'd be happy to hang out here again, just for a little while."

"I've got important things to do." Troy continued to stab his food with his spoon. "I was unconscious for a day and a half, now I'm totally out of the loop concerning what's going on in the Mushroom Kingdom..."

"I'm sure you've got important things to do, with people trying to rip you apart with weapons bigger than you..." Maple slumped down over the table.

"...wait, what? You saw all that?" Troy twitched.

"Are you kidding? We caught everything that happened in the sludge storage on the security cameras."

Troy let his head fall against the table.

"Wow, Troy," Maple shook her head. "I remember when you'd just applied here... you got to Lance Corporal and you still got slapped with latrine duty once a week. You were always telling yourself that you'd never advance beyond that point. Well, so did everyone else I assume."

"Do you understand now why I wouldn't give a crap if they unloaded a waterbomber full of praise over my head?" Troy grumbled.

"I think they're all just jealous. I know I am." Maple dropped her spoon in her bowl.

"Maybe it's not just them..." Troy slumped his arms down in front of him, laying his head down on them. "...I'm confused. I've been that way ever since I was given the keyblade and forced into this conflict. I'm not sure where my loyalties lie anymore... it seems like everyone around me is hiding things from me. The more I get run around, the more agitated I get... especially considering that people could be losing their lives over it. And it's not just me either, there are others working in the Mushroom Kingdom with keyblades that are even less informed than I am. At the same time I feel like what's happening is my fault. I should be getting to the bottom of this, but I've only just started now... that's part of the reason I came here today, to tell everyone what I've managed to figure out so far." Troy reached behind him, slamming a thick brown book down on the desk. He dusted it off for a moment before glancing back to Maple. "It got beat up a little back there."

"...what is that?"

"...actually..." Troy began climbing onto his bench, eventually standing up on the table. "...I think everyone should know."

Maple's shoulders sulked. "Whare are you do-"

"HEY!" Troy waved the book in the air, watching with satisfaction as several Troopas from nearby tables turned their attention to him - almost instantaneously realizing who was talking to them. "If you don't know me already, my name is Troy Kiemen, and I would be more than happy to give you the latest dirt involving the Vast!"

* * *

Sirius sat crosslegged on the ground with his arms folded. He took a deep breath out of the cool night air, letting out a dull grunt as he looked around again. His perception of the city lying nearby was still blurred by the haze of his forcefield. A food tray sat on the ground, with a plate of mashed potatoes lying half-eaten on it. His head slowly pivoted to the trees behind him as leaves began to rustle. Sirius's eyes dimmed as he saw the red robed figure in the darkness. "...have you come to insult me as well?"

Auron stepped out of the shadows, a look of confusion growing on his face as he saw what the forcefield contained. "...I'm going to assume that you are this Sirius I hear so much about."

"May I ask who you are?" Sirius grunted. "You do look familiar."

"You could say I'm Troy's other guardian figure. Except I made sure that he knew exactly what he was being guarded from. Auron slowly drew the long curved blade from his back, holding it forward. He slowly jabbed it forward into the Vast barrier, causing it to jump inwards slightly. Sirius fell back as the purple sludge bit at him. "...it seems I'm not the only one who was getting suspicous. On the other hand, I'm a little surprised it wasn't me who shut you down. Now... what was it that you said a while ago that REALLY caught my attention, yes... you are an agent of NSX."

"Who do you think you are?!" Sirius scowled.

"I have far more patience than I should," Auron looked away. "Don't think that I don't see what goes on in this city. You don't know who I am and frankly I don't care. Now you're going to tell me who you work for."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

Sirius crouched as Auron stuck the blade in deeper. All at once the Vast barrier began to contract around him. "You are not a Nobody, yet you fear the Vast. A Heartless would suck this up like noone's business, yet you do not do that either. The obvious conclusion is that you are a Complete. Which means you know things about the Vast that you should spill. I mean, that's all there's left to do, I've already sowed knowledge about the Heartless and the Nobodies in this world."

"What is it that you want?"

"The same thing any Keyper wants," Auron crouched down. "A full and complete understanding of what is going on in the universe. You say that you have been around to see a lot of worlds fall. I believe that. But what you don't realize is that I've seen many worlds collapse too. Only the Heartless and the Vast we've seen on a regular basis. But tell me, where are all the Nobodies?"

"I don't understand what relevance that has."

"I think you do. I know there are other Completes running around. One of them had a primal Nobody with them. What would compel a Complete to hunt a Keyper with a primal Nobody in tow, knowing that the only thing that Nobody would be good against was a docile Nobody?..."

"If you're trying to accuse me of something, do cut to the chase." Sirius growled.

"I'm accusing no one of doing anything besides lying." Auron pushed up his spectacles. "People might hunt down the keyblades, but the fact that a Complete is behind it is something that intrigues me. That and how they already knew that whoever was holding one was a Nobody with no way of telling without coming into contact with him/her previously and conducting a battery of tests... Troy is a Nobody. I am a Nobody. Everyone in this world that I have encountered is a Nobody. I am willing to assume that everyone in this entire world period is a Nobody. Yet, no one is in the pursuit of their hearts. At the same time though, the Heartless and Vast continue to pour in. I know for a fact that this is not a continuous occurence. Do you know why this is?"

Sirius remained silent.

"If someone loses their heart, all that remains is their body and mind. The Heartless represent the carnal desires of the body. The mind that usually regulates that is absent, severed off in the form of the Nobody. The Nobody retains the image of how the mind perceived itself. All the mind does is regulate. It theorizes, it learns, it comprehends, but it cannot truly act on anything that doesn't come about of those processes. On the other hand, the body simply exists to sustain itself. It might be possible to make a Nobody forget about its heart in that manner. Heartless... not so much."

"Get to the point."

"The Nobodies here have been held prisoner by someone or something. They have lost all association with the Heartless yet the Heartless still see them as competition for latent hearts. The keyblades that are here are red flags. I want to know why the keyblades are here and how they got here. I have to find my heart, as it is likely the only thing that will tell me what I need to know about the worlds around me. And... what people WITH hearts are doing wandering around here, as well as what the Vast even is. And that is why I'm here. This will be the last time I ask. What is the Vast? What is NSX?"

"This must be a joke. Even if I do have a heart, it doesn't particularly mean that I'm forced to be kind. You scum are all beneath me. You should be happy that I am working to help preserve your world! When the Vast and Heartless are gone... your lives will return to normal and you can forget that I was ever here. You Nobodies, and your lonely little world..."

"So what reason do you have to save this world?"

Sirius's eyes glowed. "I preserve the balance."

"The balance of what?"

"The singular balance."

"Your sole purpose is to ensure that nothing besides the Nobodies exist in this world."

"That is correct."

"We will resist, even if we are incapable of true love or hate. When the time comes, the other worlds you've done this to will know the truth. And eventually, your superiors will be revealed. Minds inquire, Sirius. And they usually don't stop at half-truths."

Sirius laughed harshly. "...do you honestly think you can contain me? Asides from that, do you really think that just because Troy, Luigi and Peach have spontaneously grown brains that I've lost the ability to hold this world by the throat? Do I need to remind you that they are three keypers in a virtually infinite sea of them? As you've potentially seen, it isn't incredibly difficult to seize someone's powers using false ambition. And infinite semi-experienced to experienced keypers versus three seems like perfectly good odds for me."

Auron raised his head, his shades glinting in the moonlight. "Those are bold words." his head tilted to the side as he heard rustling and clanking off in the distance. Spots of light; the guards' lamps, bobbed and flickered about as they approached.

"Who goes there?!" a voice shouted out.

Auron grumbled to himself, darting off in the other direction. He looked over his shoulder as he escaped into a grove, seeing the scintillant orb surrounding Sirius glimmer one last time.

* * *

A slender, muscular figure sat hunched on a rock, flicking pebbles off his foothold into the dried basin below him. Rain slowly slapped down onto the ground, yet again it seemed to act little towards making the terrain look any more hospitable. He tensed up as he heard footsteps behind him, and the claws on his feet dug further into the hard dirt beneath him. He pressed his similarly-taloned hand against the ground to gradually return to a standing position. Slowly he turned, fixing himself on his visitor. A tall, built man in white cloth pants stood facing him, with a head of white hair that streaked back and into the air, and a thick white mustache.

The man surveyed the cliff-facer once more, eyeing him up and down. He was in similarly-styled cloth pants, although black, and was topless as he was - but with pale purple skin adorned with various dark green tattoos around his shoulders. The wispy, jet black hair not held back by his black blindfold swayed around his head, not doing a very good job of hiding the horns that protruded from his forehead.

The white-haired man shook his head. "What are you doing out here. Get inside."

"...am I not permitted to think?" his target spat. "I do recall saying you were not my master. Even if by some fluke chance you happened to be, you would still do well to provide me with breathing room."

"I am not here to argue."

"My key has been commissioned it seems."

The older man staggered. "...what is that supposed to mean?"

The demonoid turned back around, crouching down again. He plucked a pebble off the ground, flicking it off into the pit ahead of him. "Earlier you sent your buffoons out to encounter the keyper known as Troy Kiemen. However, they were not able to seize the Chronicle. It would seem, though, that his interests are in direct conflict with my... associate's. He has also attempted earlier to use the controlled Dark Knight against him, but Troy and his friends seem to be more intelligent than they let on."

"I was not informed of this, Illidan!"

"Perhaps," Illidan slowly pivoted his head to the side. "He is not confident in your powers. I would not be offended. If your mind is not strong in his presence... it could be crushed like a gnat's. This is no longer about the Chronicle to me. That is your battle, not mine. Right now, I am more interested in Troy's demise."

"You may no longer be interested in the Chronicle, but I still am. I will pursue it independent of your interests if that is the case."

Illidan shook his head. "Heihachi Mishima. You should be honored that for some reason I'm still not insulted. Now if it silences you I'll cooperate for the time being, but if you are unable to deal with Troy than this shall be a battle of my own."

Heihachi snarled, spinning around on his heels and marching off again. As he vanished behind a cloud of dust and moisture, Illidan snapped out his wrist. An ear-piercing screech erupted from his hand along with a thick metal shaft. It snapped in half by itself, with one half sliding down and backwards to create a cross. It suddenly burst into blinding blue flame, receding to show its transformation into a grotesque, inward-curved bony-bladed star weapon. Its edges still singed with azure flame.

"Needless to say..." Illidan growled. "...Cocytus will be filling its blood quota earlier than expected."


	7. Instant Replay: Part One

Wooster continued to drizzle water on a set of planted roses. He prepared to tip up his watering can to move to the next flowerbed when the roar of a small engine tore by. Wooster shielded himself as a duststorm hit him like a tidal wave, and the dune buggy that created it continued to ravage its way down one of the palace's subroads. In mere seconds it stopped on the side of the path with a shriek of its tires. Troy bounded over the top and strode up the hill with his arms swinging wildly at his sides. Wooster raised his own arms and cried out in protest, but Troy ended up simply marching straight through the flower arrangement and he continued on towards the palace courtyard without even blinking. 

Sirius's head snapped up and his vision became clear as he realized what was happening. Troy continued his stride, knocking over a passing mushroom retainer without looking back. Eventually he had made his way through the maze of hedges and stood at the top of a hill, where Sirius remained in his prison, under a tall tree. Troy stood his ground 20 feet away, locking eyes with the Chozo.

"Can I help you?" Sirius said flatly.

Troy didn't show any wrinkle in his face as he raised up the battered tome he held at his side. "Auron's already told me everything. I assume everyone was starting to figure out what you were up to?"

"That I'm using you as playthings against the Heartless and Vast? I'm sure you're familiar with those terms by now, correct? Organization XIII certainly had their way with words in reciting their research to the public." Sirius slowly began to stand, his talons digging into the dirt as he rose. "I said you were defending your world, yes? I'm sorry, I should have made it more clear whether you were saving it in the short or long term."

"Stop this," Troy muttered. "What are you saying, do you know what Organization XIII is?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Sirius shot back. "Organization XIII was just like you, Troy, just like other people in this world, or any world for that matter. They saw flaws in the way the world was presented and they wished to enlighten themselves. They were Nobodies just like yourself that wanted to see the world in the true light. They wanted to see the relationship between themselves and the Heartless, and themselves and the hearts they obviously lost. They wanted to see their true selves. Of course you've obviously seen by now that the appendix in there about the Vast isn't what you'd consider... complete, but I would say that since their bright minds were still a tad dull about the grand scheme of things and the Organization itself ended before its time, they were unable to comprehend the Vast itself. Still I don't. Or still WE don't, I should say."

"Who's we?"

"Now now, because I didn't tell your beloved Kingdom, don't think I'm going to make an exception for you. All I can say is that you should not be taking even the words of Organization XIII as the gospel regarding current events. I'm sure you've seen some parallels however, yes?"

"I've already had copies of this book made and distributed to the Koopa and Mushroom Kingdoms." Troy said nonchalantly.

Sirius let out a dull hack. "You did WHAT?!"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Troy thumped the heavy book against his side. "once this becomes mainstream and it's determined that everyone in this world is classified as a Nobody by the standards set out by Organization XIII and how we are meant to interact with the Heartless, we can determine our own plan of action."

"You never cease to amaze me, Troy Kiemen. 'Determine our own plan of action'?"

"Quit ramming your propoganda down my throat." Troy scowled. "I've read that book top to bottom and even if it told me that I am what it considers to be a Nobody... I have no idea what that means in terms of myself. If there's a Nobody, me, and a Heartless that corresponds to me... is there some kind of world that's an alternate to this one?"

"You merely don't want to accept the literal definition of a Nobody."

"That's absurd, are you trying to tell me that I'm just a figment of someone's imagination?!" Troy screeched. "That I'm not physical? Look at me, I'm physical, I eat, I sleep, I feel pain... what's expected out of me?"

Sirius stared down at the ground, chuckling. Slowly he started to shake his head. "That's what makes me despise you all so much. You Nobodies, you Heartless, you Vast. You pride yourself on being some group of little subcultures... you are all so evolved, yet at the same time you are all so daft... Auron came to speak with me last night. Did he happen to tell you why I am here? Or did Peach for that matter?"

Troy paused, letting inertia carry his arms to a halt.

"As you've so cleverly deducted, this planet is made up entirely of Nobodies. You can't immediately tell, but this entire galaxy is made up of Nobodies. As you might also notice, you are being overrun by the Heartless and the Vast, both of which respond to the keyblades. When I pursued the Heartless and Vast to this planet I tried to insert myself closest to where the initial outbreak was. Your friend, Bowser. When I realized I wouldn't get there in time, I had to make special preparations to guide someone to a nearby keyblade to activate it. I had to sift through all the nearby Nobodies in short order, and you... you gave off a special kind of aura... it was warm and inviting to me, and I knew that for some reason I could place my trust in you."

"Quit trying to butter me up." Troy growled.

"...I'm not going to try to improve your perception of me; don't think I even care about whether you lived or died by taking responsibility of the Chronicle, Troy. What mattered is that I would put your skills to work in ensuring that this closed system of Nobodies remains closed and that you all live your marginal existences like stupid, senile sheep. Do you know why, Troy? It's because that in attempting to understand the Nobodies, Heartless and Vast myself, along with all those that I know, I've lost most of my friends and family in this stupid eternal squabble between thsee forces. Don't you see? In pursuing the truth, you're letting these... ALIENS into your home and causing untold collateral damage!!"

"NO ONE TOLD YOU TO COME HERE!!" Troy roared. "And you... what gives YOU the right to tell me what I should and shouldn't be pursuing, when you yourself, or anyone else for that matter, don't even know what the ultimate truth is and what kind of effect it will have on everything that you do?!"

Sirius lurched backwards as if he had been punched in the chest.

"I'm right, aren't I? AREN'T I?!" Troy yelled.

"...you... you sound just... like him."

"Who?"

"Troy!" a voice called out to Troy's left. Troy quickly glanced off to the side to find another retainer tugging at the belt strapped diagonally across his shell. "You must report to the throne room this instant, Sir Auron wishes to pass on a message to you."

Troy stabbed a finger at Sirius. "This isn't over!" he shot one last glare at Sirius before jogging away with the messenger.

Sirius simply stood in the breeze, eventually crashing down into the grass on his behind.

"There's no way... that could be possible."

* * *

**nSx: chAptEr 7**

**5[6jke35.sd\  
iNstAnT RePLaY: PArt 1**

* * *

"Two keyblades were discovered near a fringe outpost of the Koopas in Dark Land. They were immediately shipped to the capital and are being taken care of by the proper authorities." Toad started shuffling through the long paper in his hands, letting more of it add to the pile of its entrails at his feet. By now, it was threatening to swallow him whole. "A third has been found in the Muda kingdom of Sarasaland and Birabuto has begun negotiations to place it in their vault until a recipient can be found. Reports are saying that people in Pipe Land are beginning to scour the catacombs for any keyblade-related relics and the local regime has installed policing in the transport tube system to ensure that nothing is removed without our approval." Toad frowned, looking up from the sheet just before the pile began circling his head. "Okay, I get that the keyblades are important and everything, but do we really have the resources to keep track of all this?"

Peach paced back and forth in front of the throne, where her father sat. Wooster sat a short distance away buffing polish into the metallic spikes on top of the black, bulbous crown while its owner watched, distressed, as Toad continued dealing out status reports and his own daughter continued to issue counterstatements and fidget her way across the throne room multiple times in the process.

"Ohhhhh..." he groaned. "Who would have thought that my own daughter would be a better wartime politician than me..."

"Everyone, sire." Wooster spat on the top rim of the crown and rapidly rubbed it in.

"It says here that there's a recently published book being circulated around Last Chance Bastion talking about the scientific importance of the Heartless and Nobodies," Toad mumbled. "Have you heard anything about that, Troy?"

Troy leant against a nearby pillar with his arm folded. He continued staring out the window, watching guards as the lit lamps throughout the courtyard, night approaching fast. "I'd know, I was the one that distributed it."

Everyone in the room was taken aback. "There's no time you'd have time to publish a book on the Heartless and Nobodies, Troy," Peach scowled. "And even if by some miracle you did, none of us even know enough about them to draw any reasonable conclusions."

"Besides getting the keyblades to the right people," Troy pushed himself upright. "First of all, I got the retainers to distribute copies to all your rooms. Secondly, it's not copyrighted to me, these are all drafts of a book that was given to me by Auron. It was published by a gathering of Nobodies calling themselves Organization XIII. I had a specialist look at the condition of the original copy, and it's at least 100 years old... we don't have the means of getting an accurate dating beyond that."

"Didn't Sirius talk about not worrying about the Nobodies?" Mario added. "Sirius kept saying that."

"You don't have to worry about fighting the Nobodies," Troy grunted. "We ARE the Nobodies."

Gasps came out from the crowds of retainers roaming around the throne room.

"Are you trying to tell me that we're... RELATED to these other things that are rampaging across the world?" Peach said quietly. "In the case that I feel like actually beliving that, why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

Troy glared at Peach. "You should know better than anyone else that you can't always tell who's a monster."

Peach attempted to generate a counterpoint, but found no words coming out of her mouth as pictures of Troy's transformation in Birabuto began to flood back into her mind, alongside images of the monstrous Giygas.

"I don't know what our relationship with the Heartless is, all that matters is that since we're somehow classified as Nobodies, they won't stop until we're all dead. As far as the Vast is concerned though, there's no documentation of how that plays out as far as Organization XIII was able to figure out, and apparently Auron has no clue either. The only link we have is Sirius, and he's obviously intent on keeping his mouth shut in order to gain favor with NSX, whatever that happens to be. Anyways I thi..." Troy trailed off, feeling the stares of everyone around him cutting into him. "...uh, is something wrong?"

"Troy..." Peach covered her mouth. "...your hand."

* * *

Troy hovered over a sink in the kitchen, gnashing and grinding his teeth as he ran hot water over top of his scar. He watched with a twitch in his eye as the blood coming off it funneled down into the drain in a blurred, abstract pattern. "WHAT is UP with this thing... can I go a day without it freaking out on me? Pretty quick I'm going to have bled enough for 10 Troys..."

"You obviously thought too hard."

"Oh, shu... Auron?" Troy glanced over his shoulder. Auron stood immediately behind him, looking over Troy's shoulder into the rapidly bloodying sink. "I would've rather had your supervision 5 minutes ago."

"I can't determine whether making Organization XIII's chronicling of the Heartless and Nobodies public knowledge has had a postive or negative effect on the defense initiative. They were able to learn a great deal about them and that information passed into new hands will let them cope better. But remember that there is still more to be learned, and especially that the Vast has yet to be accounted for."

"I don't know what else you were expecting me to do," Troy turn around finally. "Are you insisting that I was supposed to use that information to stop everything from happening singlehandedly?"

Auron paused for a second. He pointed at Troy's hand. "Did something happen?"

"Haven't you seen this before?" Troy clenched and released his fist again. "I got this trying to escape from Bowser's dungeons with Sirius and since then this thing has been rising up and bleeding at the most random times. It's been weeks, I'm starting to wonder if it's gotten infect..." he stopped as Auron slammed his hands down on his shoulders. "...uhhhh."

"What hand do you hold your keyblade in?" Auron asked sternly.

"...this." Troy made a fist again.

"This is more than a coincidence..." Auron rubbed his forehead. "I knew something was wrong just listening to your attitude change... not just your attitude. You're changing, Troy, and I'm surprised you're still who you are. Hold still."

"What's going on, I ju-ssaaaAUGH!!" Troy was slammed to the ground as a needle of light bored straight through his hand. Howing in pain, Troy looked over to find Auron grasping the needle at its top as it widened out and took the form of Auron's Murasama. With a growl he twisted it to the side, causing Troy to let out a screech. With one final motion Auron tore his blade out, and Troy stared on with ragged breath as a clump of purple ooze stuck to the end of the zanbato. "...how... ahhhh... what is that?!"

"Bowser was the first to be struck by the Vast. You, Troy, were the second."

* * *

"I don't get this, how was Troy infected with Vast?" Peach threw her arms up in disgust. Everyone had gathered at a table in the dining room, Peach taking the helm once more.

"Remember that Bowser was infected by both Heartless and Vast, going by what we saw while battling him, the descriptions of his behavior and the entity that just kinda sprang in and out of him by the Koopa Troop, and the defintions of the physical form of the Heartless given by both Auron and Organization XIII." Troy said sternly.

"But, if taking in both the Heartless and the Vast made Bowser go cuckoo," Luigi mumbled. "What does only the Vast represent?"

"Realize that I only classify this as the Vast because it's something that's neither a Heartless nor Nobody." Auron leant back in his chair. "There is no legal definition of what the Vast is, but I've witnessed these same symptoms in a lot of people."

"Tell us these symptoms."

"Sporadic developments of thought patterns, extreme physical reactions to challenges of that train of thought, rapid, unexplained proficiency with keyblades."

"So you're saying an infection is making me smart." Troy said flatly.

"That's about it."

"What's this about enhanced keyblade ability?" Selphie sat resting her head on her palms.

"It makes sense when you think about it... the Vast is likely connected to the keyblades somehow." Auron folded his arms. "I am able to manipulate it to some extent as you've just witnessed, and Princess Toadstool has demonstrated similar abilities in projecting and attracting Vast with her own keyblade. What exactly would cause that I'm unsure of. On that note however, if the Vast and keyblades are interconnected that would mean the Vast is connected to some extent to Troy's keyblade while he uses it with that hand. That may offer some explanation as to how he has been able to rapidly improve his ability with it, that is to say, the Vast was taking control of him in combat."

"What are you saying?" Troy sighed. "That now that you removed this Vast virus or whatever it is, that I'm going to be a vegetable in battle?"

"Purging the Vast does little to remedy symptoms. It simply prevents... further complications from occuring."

"And what precisely is that?" Peach interjected.

"I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, but the most prominent issue that arises from prolonged exposure is a loss of long-term memory. To be perfectly honest I've never seen any extreme long-term cases of Vast infection, and I'm not sure if I want to."

"I'm not sure how to interpret all this," Peach groaned, slumping her head down against the table. "Are you trying to tell me that the Vast causes evolution or something? Everything you've described not only describes Troy, but Bowser as well, after his infection burst out into the open his strength skyrocketed, and now that we've seperated the Heartless and Vast from him, our diplomats in the Koopa Kingdom have told us that he refuses to leave his inner sanctum except when people ask him to issue orders. Maybe he's thinking long and hard about what he's done... and the fact that he killed someone with his own bare hands doesn't exactly play in his favor."

"That is exactly what I was thinking about," Auron wheezed. "Although, we already set him on the road to recovery that day. I'm relieved to know that he still has a solid grip over his kingdom. Certainly he'll recover fully in the future."

"That still raises the question of why the Heartless attacks Nobodies, and the Vast attacks Nobodies, yet the Heartless and Vast coexist." Troy muttered.

"But!" Selphie pointed upwards. "Troy was injected with Vast but didn't go berserk, but Bowser had both and did!"

"...the Heartless dominates the Vast." Peach ruminated.

"Precisely." Auron concluded.

"So this is a big, galactic-domination game of rock paper scissors," Troy rubbed his chin. "Heartless beats Vast, Vast beats Nobody... Nobody beats Heartless? That last part doesn't make sense."

"Maybe it does and we don't realize it. We didn't even know we were these 'Nobodies' until a short while ago." Toad added.

"Anyways, I'm going to need to cut this conversation short," Auron slowly rose from his seat. "I'd like to meet with Troy in private."

"Now that Auron's starting to reveal juicy bits, he's going to save all the best for Troy," Selphie groaned.

* * *

Troy sat on the stairs in the foyer. He rapidly drummed his fingers against the side of his skull, slowing as his eyes rolled in the direction of a door closing. Troy pushed himself up with a grunt, turning to face Auron at the top of the cascade of puffy red carpet. "Okay, you're really going to have to stop dragging me alone to places to pleasure yourself. It's getting kind of creepy."

"Do you still have the sidecar installed on your buggy?" Auron descended. He strode by Troy and moved straight for the door, to which Troy would take several seconds to respond.

"...I took it off before heading to Dark Land the other day, I can get it installed in about 20 minutes give or take. What's up?"

"We need to head for a drive."

Those 20 minutes came and went, and with the moon creeping over the ramparts of the castle, Troy's buggly began to roll out of the palace grounds, with the mushroom guards casually stepping off the paved pathways as the vehicle rumbled along.

"Where are we going?" Troy asked sternly.

Auron sat, very uncomfortably, in Troy's sidecar with his arms folded. "I didn't want to talk about it in front of all your friends, but your infection has spread deeper than you likely imagine. Funny how you didn't ask me at all why it was bleeding at particular moments. Maybe you realized they all had some relationship to each other."

"Just cut to the chase." Troy sighed. "This isn't going to make me a cripple, is it?"

"I already did my own recon and spoke with people who have had contact with you over the past week. This Vast infection, like many others I've encountered, only reacts violently in times of stress or self-realization. I can't place an exact hypothesis to its effects, but it seems like your body is rejecting itself."

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." One of Troy's arms slouched over the side of the vehicle as he lazily spun the wheel with his other hand.

"The Vast is trying to change you. Into what, I don't know. When you were nearly turned into a primal Nobody by Giygas its reaction was even more potent. The Vast is reacting more strongly, therefore, depending on how 'potent' of a Nobody you are."

"I still don't understand this 'primal' Nobody stuff."

"That is confidential information. You're going to have to prove yourself a little more before I can trust you with some of my darker secrets."

"Prove?" Troy applied the brakes slightly. "Did you really send Nightmare after me?"

"Yes."

"I don't exactly find people trying to assassinate me proper etiquette."

"Sirius is in remote command of the other keyblade hunters here. I'm sure you've met them."

"I'm not surprised," Troy laughed harshly. "He wants to kill me, you want to kill me, everyone seems to want this stupid keyblade for some reason, but I just can't-"

"In this case, I will be assisting you in taking care of them."

"-and I don't want to believe that..." Troy paused. "...what?"

"The 32nd Paratroopa division of the Koopa Troop has located an odd bunker-type installation in the northernmost reaches of Land's End. They've tried to contact remote Koopa tribes in the area but no one seems to be able to take ownership of it. You and I will be going there to investigate. If my suspicions are true, then that should be their headquarters. In that case, we will be able to fix you up once and for all."

"What are you even talking about?"

Auron glared down at Troy. "When you temporarily assumed the form of a primal Nobody, the Vast infection became entrenched even deeper. My keyblade cannot remove it properly, let alone yours, and the only person that I know that could possibly remove it is currently unreachable. If you devolve into your primal Nobody form once more, it may be enough to kill you. Therefore, we're going to do the next best thing. We're going to find another local primal Nobody, one that the Vast might be more inclined to occupy instead of you."

"...you told me not to get close to Giygas."

"Well, I lied. Turn here. We should be able to get to Last Chance Ramparts in a few hours and rest for a bit before going to their base. We should be able to strike them in the dead of night."

"You never said how we're getting in."

"I said you had to prove yourself, didn't I?"

"Well that's not..." Troy trailed off. "WHOA, whoa whoa, you're kidding, right? Exactly how many of them are there compared to us?"

"I thought you said you wanted to discover new things?"

"That was Peach."

"...oh well, your loss."

Troy wheezed. "Maybe, just one of these times, I should tell Peach that when I say I'm stepping outside I really mean I'm going on a road trip." Troy slouched back and resumed focusing on the road. Nothing was heard for a few minutes except the dull hum of the buggy's engine and the occasional bump in the road. "...what's going to happen after this?"

"After what?"

"After we deal with these guys and get myself cleaned up. What's going to happen? Are we going to be stuck here fending for ourselves while still no one tells us exactly what we're fighting and what's beyond this world? It seems like everyone is just feeding me hints and clues, but how do you honestly expect someone like me, or anyone else in these two kingdoms for that matter, to figure out our real relationship with the Heartless and the Vast? Why did you even come here to begin with?"

"I informed that someone from the organization only referring to itself as NSX had descended upon this world."

"Here we go, giving me the runaround," Troy muttered. "What is NSX?"

"If I knew would I be chasing them?"

"ARGH."

"There's been others like him, Troy. Entities that insist that they are roaming the worlds of the Nobodies in order to purge them of Heartless and Vast and return them to their natural state." Auron stared off into the sky. "...I have had my share of encounters with the Heartless, yes, but the Vast is far deadlier to Nobodies like you and myself. NSX knows why, and they're hiding it. And... you could say that I'm doing a bit of soul-searching."

"You're looking for a heart because you're a Nobody, uh-huh." Troy said flatly. "But you're not a primal Nobody are you?"

"No, I have no physical craving for it... it's just that, if I find my OWN heart, the one that I had prior to becoming a Nobody somehow, some of what we have all been experiencing will begin to make sense. Just like Organization XIII attempted to do. I really can't give a deeper explanation with that, and I am honestly hiding nothing from you in saying so."

"Do I have a heart somewhere?" Troy mumbled.

"Possibly. Do you have the same idea as myself?"

Neither Troy or Auron had realized, but Troy's foot was frozen above the gas pedal. The engine began to idle as the buggy's momentum rapidly drained away.

"When I was taking hold of the Chronicle for the first time," Troy said, "Sirius kept asking me if I wanted to 'evolve'. That somehow, taking the keyblade would let me see something beyond my current scope of vision. Whether it was simply getting the job of using it to rip up aliens, I don't know. But for some reason I feel charged with some incredible responsibility, and right now all that I'm concerned with is proving to everyone, Sirius included, that I'm not some brat that just happened to trip over this thing, but that I'm capable of wielding it and unlocking its secrets... that the keyblades are guiding us to the solution to all of what's happening..." Troy stared into Auron's eyes. "...I'm going to be a powerful Keyper and search out the secrets of the universe just like you. I'll do whatever I can to get Mario, Luigi and Selphie home, and help Peach... or everyone I know see the worlds that are out there somewhere."

"...hmph." Auron smirked. "It's been a while since I heard something like that."

"You're not going to send out anyone else to break my knees, are you?"

"No promises."

* * *

Two armored guards stood in one of the watchtowers looming above Toad Town. No one below had much of a clue what was happening, or was about to, but if one looked closely they could see the two soldiers taking turns flailing their limbs at each other.

"I'm telling you! It's true!" one screeched. "We have to lock down the gates now, there's been a sighting of the black gooey stuff! We must secure its movements for the good of the people!"

"And do you have clearance from the palace to do this?"

"That's the kicker! They're saying that Troy Kiemen got up and skipped town again! Everyone's in a panic, but they say there's two other keyblades in possession of the palace guests and they've sent them out to investigate! That's why we have t-"

"No Troy?! Where does that little creep keep rushing off to? I don't know if you're heard the latest tales from the armory room, but some people think that Troy's actually the one orchestrating these attacks, or that maybe he has some secret lover at the Koopas' Last Chance Rampart that he has to keep visiting!"

"Those stories don't even coincide with each other."

"BUT!" one of the mushroom guards jabbed a finger into the other's chest. "What if they ARE, and the secret lover that Troy Kiemen has is part of the invasion?! Or she's maybe causing the entire thing! What then?"

"You're willing to make up anything to make it look like this chaos is zero responsibility of the kingdom."

"I want to BELIEVE!" the other guard clutched the air in his hands.

Down below Luigi and Peach jogged by, lead by over two dozen of the palace's elite guard. The heavily-armored soldiers looked more like linebackers than the mushroom retainers that were hidden underneath the armor, and all carried riot shields that were taller than them. Any attempt to safeguard Luigi and Peach was negated by the fact that they both still blatantly rose out of the crowd.

"Princess..." Luigi wiped his brow, finding the moisture to be a mix of hot and cold droplets. On cue, he and the other soldiers looked up to find that rain had begun drizzling down on the midnight Toad Town. "...why are we out here? Are we really going on assumptions from townspeople that they'd actually seen Heartless or Vast, and that-"

"It was two seperate sightings on the same block within 5 minutes," Peach muttered. "And we wouldn't be out here if Troy could keep himself in one place for more than that amount of time. I know we're not the prime candidates for this, and we don't even have any actual combat training as that was scheduled for next week, but we can't let anything slip through the security blanket we have here, not ever, and especially not now." Both Peach and Luigi were rattled out of their half-awake state by the clicking and clanking of spears pointed forward. "...well, there you are."

Ahead of the crowd a boiling puddle of black sludge quickly grew in the middle of the street. It shrunk again as it began to reform into a beast's claw, which grew upwards and gradually built out its body. Some type of razor-clawed canine appeared before the soldiers, clacking across the cobblestone and shaking more black sludge onto the ground from its razor-sharp purple jaws as it slowly approached.

"STOP!" Peach clamped her hand down on Luigi's Alastor, as it had already begun crackling with energy.

"Whuh?" Luigi stared dully, letting Peach shake around the demonic keyblade in his loose grip.

"It's raining you douche, are you trying to get us all killed?!"

The two quickly spun back forward as the entire crowd around them jumped back a step. The hound had begun accelerating and was quickly bearing down upon the keypers. With a piercing howl it leapt up into the air, coming down upon them like a torpedo. Peach swung the hilt of her blade under her shoulder, firing a blast of Vast at the creature from its tip. The sludge scattered as it impacted the Heartless straight in the face. What was left of the purple slime dissiapated into thin air as the beast was sent flying back in the other direction, sizzling as it tumbled across the stone road. Peach quickly dropped the weapon back into her hand, and everyone nearby surveyed the seemingly wounded animal. "...did I do it?"

The guards retreated again as the canine stood again, letting out a deafening screech as another pair of legs between its other two sets shot out and connected with the ground. The red outline of a heart, with dimmed lines creating an X in the middle, became visible on its back and chest.

"The Heartless feeds on the Vast..." Luigi sighed. "Weren't you listening? This's gone from bad to worse now."

"How are we supposed to kill it then?"

"The old-fashioned way, apparently."

The animal shot across the ground even faster this time, aided by its insect-like extra legs, and threw itself at Luigi in a vicious headbutt. Luigi rolled out of the way, causing the brunt of the attack to be taken by the line of Toad guards immediately behind him, which flew and slid backwards as dominos. Its attention shifted from Luigi to the more defenseless light infantry. Luigi rolled back to a kneeling position and took off running, circling around and diving feetfirst into a slide underneath the Heartless's underbelly. Holding his blade firm in his other hand, he sliced straight through the right three of its legs, causing it to fall over to the side with a pained scream and quickly begin hobbling away. Pivoting around it prepared to take a bite out of Luigi who was still struggling to get off the ground, but he had managed to immobilize it enough for Peach to put all her weight into an overhead swing that rammed the teeth of her blade into the top of the creature's throat. Its mouth opened in a breathless cry, and it began to fall apart into clumps of blank gunk that sank into the ground or dissolved into thin air.

"Are you alright?" Peach latched onto Luigi's arm, hoisting him back up.

"I was about to get carved into fettucini there..." Luigi tried to wipe the dirt and mud stains off his overalls, but only managed to succeed in smudging them such that they took up three times the space. "...I'm gonna admit, Princess, that that was a bit more painless than I was expecting. Though knowing everything we've already went through, Sirius would probably say that there's some kind of-" Luigi cringed as he heard a high-pitched wail from the direction of the oozing corpse. Him and Peach quickly spun around, as did the remaining third of the Toad troop that hadn't fleed, to find another five canines of the same build lapping up the remains of the former one. "...catch."

The new Heartless turned to face the group with burning white eyes, baring their own fangs and beginning to advance. They quickly broke into a run, snarling as the gap quickly subsided between the Heartless and their targets. Luigi closed his eyes and prepared for the worst, but before he could mouth any words to Peach, the wind was knocked out of both them and the handful of soldiers. A fissure tore down the road under everyone's feet, which suddenly exploded and tore the road upwards in both directions. Both the Heartless and their prey let out cries of shock as they were all violently launched into the air, battering themselves against the shattered stone as they fell back to the ground.

"Unnngh..." Peach rubbed the dirt out of her eyes. "What's going on..."

"I can't be any more subtle than that, lady, unless you didn't mind 'em nibbling on you for a bit."

"That voice..." Peach's eyes snapped open and she found her arms launching her back into a standing-up position. "What are YOU doing here?!"

The gargantuan koopa sat with one of his massive hands rested on his hip, which along with his legs was covered in dull, cast-iron armor. The front of its shell, its hands and feet were sheeted in the same inch-thick crude metal with the exception of the claws themselves, and the back of the shell was made from hexagonal, finely-polished black steel with massive silver spikes rising out of it at regular intervals. Fiery red hair spilled out from behind of the iron bascinet that sat at the top of the fortress.

"...Bowser?" Luigi gasped.

Bowser took a step back, letting the dust clear. A gigantic keyblade had its teeth embedded in the ground at the source of the shockwave. The shaft itself was easily 8 feet long, made up of rusted metal that warped to one side or the other, and as Bowser clamped a gauntlet firmly around it and tore it out of the debris, it could be seen that the blade portion itself was a single, massive reddened iron spike. As he moved his other hand to the hilt, which was made up of similarly thickened yet damaged metal, he finally raised up the weapon in front of him in his ready pose, wielding it as a battleaxe.

**ABOMINATION**

**The most pure and savage form of power to be found in a keyblade, this weapon is assigned solely for destruction. Designed to harness the full physical strength of whoever wields it, this weapon is designed to deal catastrophic blows to all that are foolish enough to stand in its way. Koopa myth labels the creation of small lakes as 'holes made by heaven', and this may have been the cause.**

"Information travels fast nowdays in cause you're wondering," Bowser growled. "I kinda wanna answer for my little absence in the public eye but there's some more pressing matters in the now. You need a little Heartless infestation taken care of according to my informants, so just stand back and enjoy the show! Bwahahahaha!!"

"Has he totally lost it?" Peach rubbed her head, muttering to herself. "BOWSER!! ALL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS BEING CHARGED TO YOU, KEEP YOURSELF IN LINE!!"

"How tragic!" Bowser sneered, plates hiding his toothy grin. "I hope my treasury can keep up!!"

* * *

Troy's head slowly rose over the side of the parked buggy. "Flat tire."

Auron stood a short distance away with his arms folded, staring upwards at the rock face that dwarfed them. At its base a small set of heavy steel sliding doors stood. "Get it fixed up. We may need to beat a hasty retreat if things don't go as planned."

"I'd dispute that if I didn't have the nagging feeling that making things right in there isn't going to be as scarring as installing a spare tire... as hard as that is to believe." Troy shoveled survival gear out of the small crate that sat secured on the back storage rack of the vehicle, eventually hoisting out a small, fat rubber tire. He sunk back behind the other side of the buggy with it, beginning to loosen the other damaged radial.

"How long will that take?"

"Depends on how tight this bolt became, I haven't had to adjust this side of the axel for a few months now. Just let me clamp on and find out." Troy's grunts could be heard from where Auron stood. Auron simply shook his head and began to take slow steps towards the massive steel doors.

"Well then, if changing tires is as such a pain as you insist, then it will probably take me longer to get through these gates than you take doing YOUR job."

"Is that a challenge?" Troy growled, planting both hands on his wrench and twisting left as hard as he could.

Auron slowly reached up, lowering his shades. One eye was scarred shut, obediently remaining still as the other ebony recepticle scanned the entrance for any weaknesses. "...hmm."

"Hmm what?" Troy's face rose over the side of the vehicle again, covered in grease. "Don't tell me you don't have a plan to get in here."

"Actually, I didn't," Auron murmured back. "In fact, it's quite easy. I would take cover if I were you." Auron slowly drew his hand up along his back, causing the Murasama to rise out of an invisible sheath.

"I'm going to be taking cover all day at this rate, but that still doesn't mean you're going to think your way through a steel wall faster than-" Troy winced suddenly as a flash of light erupted around the two, fading as fast as it came. Troy rubbed his eyes and peered over the seat of the dune buggy in time to spot a sliver of light appearing in a slant across the surface of the armored doors. Before Troy could open his mouth to speak the heavy panels fractured and exploded with the ear-splitting screech of rupturing metal, sending large shards of twisted composite flying in every direction. Troy climbed to his feet and kept his hands on his earholes. Auron stood between him and what remained of the bunker entrance, with his zanbato held out to one side. Auron turned back to face him as he resheathed his weapon, tipping his head towards the gaping cavity in the mountain.

"...h-how..." Troy gaped.

Auron stopped waiting, and began moving towards it himself. "The surface of this door has been worn down by sandstorms in the area. It was easy to see areas that had been weakened, and therefore see areas that were susceptible to damage. Now, come." Auron hastened his step, causing Troy to let out a yelp and quickly lock the new tire into place. He tossed his tools back in the crate, jogging up to keep pace with the senior Keyper - and trying not to trip over the seething chunks of debris in his way.

The two began advancing down the corridor, and while Auron was focused on what lied ahead Troy would veer off to the sides and gaze in awe at what he saw - large pane glass windows on both sides would occasionally let him peer into massive antechambers, on the floors of which lied great metal cylindrical containers, for what appeared to be volitile liquids. "...Auron, what's all-"

"Shh." Auron raised his hand. "Listen."

Troy blinked, glancing around himself once again as a dull crackle filled the air, quiet but growing in volume. Eventually it tapered off and several loud thuds echoed through the hallways with incredible bass.

"Troy, Troy, Troy," Heihachi's voice finally boomed. "I was hoping you'd drop in for tea at some point, but I don't recall saying you could bring your friends. Really, you should've just turned over the Chronicle while you had the chance. I'm a... tad more forgiving than some of my henchmen for what you've made us go through. Unfortunately I haven't been able to calm them down, so if you'd still like to have a word with me I'm afraid I can't take responsibility for whatever they feel inclined to do to you. I couldn't help but notice you look a little perplexed as to what this facility is doing here. I'm sure you've already realized that my organization has fairly limited employment yet we have this entire mountain to ourselves."

"This is a quarantine facility used by NSX." Auron spoke.

"NSX like Sirius?" Troy quickly pivoted over.

"Well, Troy, I'm afraid I may have been mistaken, maybe I'd like to have a discussion with this Auron fellow, he seems pretty well educated in the history of this world. You know that part where he said that no Koopa tribes would take ownership of this base? That's because they all own it. Nor did they give you permission to use it. Are you familiar with the myth of Magnagore?"

"Lava beast threatens the Koopa population, tribal magic seals it in a cave, yadda yadda, I don't know why people still believe that."

"Well then you obviously have no problem with Auron trampling all over what you would consider popular historical belief by rampaging into that very underground lair? Don't worry, nothing big and scary resides here... well, except us anyways. We've done our own investigations."

Troy lurched back. "Are you saying that this place is older than the Koopas? Is this really an installation of the NSX?"

"Was," Heihachi chuckled. There was a pause, then another fizzle over the hidden intercom. "Even I don't know how old this place is, or how to access most of the sectors for that matter. All that matters is that it would have been hidden from the world even longer if your samurai friend hadn't started nosing around. Anyways, I'm sure I've occupied you enough... I would say it's time for everyone else to have a turn."

"So be it." Auron said sternly.

"Are you having broken into the secret base already?!" Fawful's voice screeched through the speakers. "Aren't you getting the danger and pain that associates with breaking down the property of us? We are in the process of taking the Chronicle! Stopping us is a stupid use of time! Hurry up and get smart!"

"They could attack us at any time," Auron mumbled. "Even if they know little about this facility's true use they do know the terrain better than us."

"What's that clicking..." Troy pressed his ear up against one of the wall panels.

"GET BACK!!" Auron latched onto Troy's shoulders, tearing him away from the wall and spinning the two around so Auron remained positioned behind Troy.

"If you're trying to shield me you're doing it wr-" Troy felt the wind sucked out of his lungs as an explosion tore the opposite wall apart, hurling the nearest panel at Troy. It struck him square in the chest, sending the two flying back into the window behind them. The entire string of glass sheets blasted outwards into fragments as the two hurtled through them. They plunged downwards at least 20 feet into the chamber Troy had looked into, and Auron took the brunt of the dive into the patterned steel flooring. Troy quickly rolled off, allowing both of them to jump back to their feet.

"He knew exactly where I'd be sent flying..." Troy stared forward, biting his lip. "Are you alright?"

"Mostly..." Auron rose to his feet. Troy winced as he watched Auron tear a shard of glass out of the side of his torso, but stared in confusion as he showed no physical discomfort.

"Good..." Troy turned back in the other direction, frowning. "'cause we've already got company."

"Nice of him to move you into an open area where we can more ably crush you." Wily stood with his arms folded on the very top of Gutsman's head, his coat flapping in the breeze that still remained unsettled from the blast. "What's a good metaphor for this... you've stepped right down the devil's throat of your own free will, and it's time for you to suffer the consequences. I've made some... enhancements to Gutsman to ensure that he can provide us all with a bit more entertainment."

"Let's go!" Gutsman's elbows swiveled, stretching themselves out before the colossus's fist slammed into its opposite hand. "This time the score's gonna run a little different, eh?! Are you ready to get clobbered?!"

"It's just like you to hog the show." Valentina let out a dull grunt as she climbed onto Wily's foothold. "...oh, Troy! Can't say I was expecting you, but by all means come in and pay your respects... and don't think any little freak show you put on is going to scare me away!"

"It's like you're invisible." Troy glared at Auron. Auron just shook his head.

"No more games!" Wily bellowed. Sparks flew from Valentina's fingers and Gutsman's fists suddenly erupted in flame. With a loud grind they spun 90 degrees in their slots, and rockets blasted from within as they suddenly shot out at the two with heavy chains in their wake. Auron sighed to himself and disappeared in a blur as one flaming mass of metal tore down into the ground where he once stood. Troy on the other hand was left to run with his limbs flailing, only managing to avoid the attack on his front by tripping over a pipe. The fist slammed into one of the large storage drums, leaving a massive deformation in it.

"Guess that would be the easiest way to find out what's inside..." Troy catapaulted back to his feet. "Let's see you try that again."

Auron flew down out of the air elsewhere, driving his zanbato into one of the chain's links. Wily dropped down onto all fours, slamming his fists down on top of the robot's head as he broke out in shrill laughter. "You idiot... do you honestly think you can break those chains that easily?... I've taken every weak link, literally and figuratively, into consideration while upgrading this model-" Wily jerked back as the chains began to rattle. The wind rushed by him again as the rockets shifted into reverse and began retracting their projectiles at very much the same velocity - launching Auron at Gutsman's forearm.

"Nuh-uh!" Valentina raised her hand again, spraying the base of the fist's hole with mist.

"What are you doing?!" Wily screeched.

Auron looked up, seeing himself rushing at the ice wall where Gutsman's fist socket once was. He ripped his blade out and propelled himself off of the chain, plummeting down to the ground again as the fist slammed into it in response - but didn't manage to smash through it completely. The fist's chain lost its tension, and the rocket hand tumbled down to the ground below with a thunderous crash.

"You idiot!..." Wily scowled at Valentina. "Did you expect him to just walk into that?! And now... Gutsman... retract! Again!"

Troy grimaced, following the exact same procedure with his own keyblade. He wrapped his body around it and held on for dear life. The rockets never fired. Instead, Gutsman let out a roar as he spun his entire body around, slinging the free hand at the nearest wall. Troy lost his grip as the hand plowed into the wall, and was thrown off, dangling from his own weapon with one hand. Troy grinned as he realized what was happening.

"Now I got yuh!!" Gutsman snarled. The rockets fired again and Troy's fist quickly shot back towards to its respective socket. Troy hurled himself back onto his keyblade with all his strength, unlinking it from the chain and dropping off just as the hand flew back into his hole - making sure, however, to latch onto the edge of the orifice with the teeth of the blade. The fist impacted the back end of the weapon, doing no damage to the keyblade while being unable to refit itself - while the chain continued to pull. With an ear-piercing CRACK, the chain continued to retract at rocket speed, completely tearing itself off the fist. Completely seperated from Gutsman, the fist fell to the ground below, completely crushing one of the liquid tanks. Troy touched down moments after, turning and not being ready for what he'd see.

A wall of purple sludge tore out in all directions from the obliterated storage tank.

"Vast?!"

Auron raced by Troy on the ground, latching onto his forearm and dragging him in a mad sprint. The two leapt up to the top of another of the cylinders, turning to examine the damage they'd helped cause. There wasn't enough of the substance released to completely cover the floor, but it still took up a great majority of it.

"Gutsman is useless thanks to you!!" Wily screamed.

"Not a problem. We've got 'em cornered, I'll take care of this." Valentina jumped down the arm, quickly scaling down the mecha. Troy watched in horror as she leapt down to the floor - straight into the puddle of Vast.

"NO!! STOP!!" Troy screamed. He broke from Auron's grip, jumping down to the floor. He ran in a wild windsprint to the border of the Vast puddle, stumbling to a stop as Valentina touched down. Valentina started to jog through the gunk, charging up a blast of flame in her right hand - looking around confusedly as the Vast slowly started to climb up her legs and slow her pursuit.

"W-what's happening..." Valentina said weakly. "What is this..." she looked up in time to see a column of Vast rising to her side, suddenly lancing out with a spike of solidified purple slime aimed directly at her skull. Troy felt his skin turn clammy and cold as a sheen of red light overrid his vision. Time quickly lurched to a crawl, to an even greater extent than the Chronicle was normally responsible for. Valentina's expression quickly turned from that of confusion to utter terror as she locked eyes with Troy. "What did you do?!"

"What do I do?!"

_'She'll be erased.'_

_'Erased?'_

_'A Nobody can't survive long in that form. And the bond between them and their heart is weak in this stage...'_

_'What are you talking about?!'_

_'The Vast will tear apart everything that she is...'_

_'I have to do something!'_

_'There is nothing you can do... not unless your heart is powerful enough to find her's.'_

_'I can't leave her... I can't leave Ameile to be... **DEVOURED!!**'_

Blood was rushing to Troy's head. He shook the blur out of his vision, realizing that he had spaced out for a critical second. He looked up to find the lance of Vast inches from Valentina's temple, and let out a breathless yell as he charged straight into the Vast. No longer having any rational understanding of what he was doing, he paid no attention to the fact that the Vast receded from around his feet with every step he took charging through it. He reached up, clasping the Chronicle with both hands, and cleaved through the tower of Vast, causing it to rupture and explode into thin air. The sludge simply hung in the air, refusing to fall back down into the pool it came from. Troy spun around to Valentina and realized what had happened - time had completely stopped for him. Looking around in panic, the Vast slowly began to close up around his feet again.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!!" Troy cried at the top of his lungs.

With a flash, him and Auron vanished - and the Vast retreated into a blob in the perfect shape of the tank that had held it. Valentina stood in the middle, taking ragged breaths as she, Wily and Gutsman remained breathless in the middle of the empty, ruined room.

* * *

In a hallway deeper inside the compound, Troy was down on all fours, taking labored breaths as Auron towered over him. Auron shook his head, turning his attention to the corridors ahead.

"Are you beginning to see why people desire the Chronicle so badly?" Auron muttered. "Or, for that matter, why people want you dead so badly?"

"Do you... know what... happened..." Troy hacked out between wheezes. His stomach continued to threaten to turn inside out. "...guhhhhh..."

"Of course not," Auron tensed up as he heard several mechanical clanks from within the walls, but returned to his regular posture as they died out. "I didn't actually see."

"...what's that supposed to mean?!" Troy stared coldly upwards at Auron as he still struggled to push himself to his feet. "How could you not have seen any of that... I freaked out before I actually tried to do anything... but again, everything slowed down... I just charged out there not thinking what would happen to me, but just that whatever that Vast was doing... I don't know, it was something I had to stop. After that... I can't tell you what happened. I was just... here."

"How long did you take to reach that woman?" Auron sighed.

"Too long." Troy mumbled, again falling into a coughing fit.

"...I saw you do what you did, yes. My question is how."

"What do you mean?"

"Troy, you say you flinched..." Troy trailed off. "...but you did everything you said in less than 2 seconds. It seems what you say is true... the Chronicle has some degree of control over time, but not just for you. As for us being here and not there... it seems that you were able to will the Chronicle to levels of empowerment that even my reflexes can't interpret. If that hypothesis is true, then this would be an extremely dangerous weapon in the wrong hands and that everyone's apparent zeal over it is justified. The fact that you are able to use it with relatively simple training is troubling, though." Auron crouched down and offered a hand to Troy. "...what exactly is it that's triggering the Chronicle's release, though..."

Troy gradually rose from the floor, suddenly falling against the wall. He hoisted himself up, slouching over as he dusted himself off. "...you should know my answer to that by now."

"...in that case, then it appears that not only the Chronicle is powerful... you yourself are an asset." Auron pivoted and began off in the other direction as Troy stared dully at him.

"I'm... an asset?"

Both froze. Uneasiness dripped out of the air like a sponge.

"Maybe Sirius came to this world with more haste than others," Auron mused. "Because he saw both a powerful Keyper and a great keyblade in vincinity with each other... though didn't have enough time to pinpoint you with any reasonable accuracy. It was that zeal to have a powerful sentry against the Heartless and Vast that ensured that this world survived, as much as I hate to admit it. That may be why he also waited until other keyblades had been found before showing disagreement and outright hostility towards the people of this world, so that the Heartless and Vast would be unable to establish footholds while Sirius be able to do as he pleased regarding obtaining the Chronicle... though not necessarily for himself, but to take to other worlds to battle the Heartless and Vast back into equilibrium as was done here."

"You're quite the conspiracy theorist." Troy said dully.

"You don't get very far in my business without being one." Auron shot back.

"And how exactly am I supposed to carry on without thinking that I'm an 'asset' to YOU?"

"You can skip the thinking, considering I already said that out loud."

"Yeah, we-" Troy paused. "...QUIT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ME!!"

Auron folded his arms. "...think what you want of me, but I have been keeping an eye on you for some time now, just like Sirius has. Not for the same reasons obviously, but that doesn't seem to matter much to you. I suppose I should clear myself up now."

"What's that supposed to mean..."

"I came to this world for the same reason Sirius did. I wanted to defend the Nobodies that still didn't realize what their role was in the universe from being annihilated by the rogue entities that breached their worlds. NSX's ambitions, however, are to return the Nobody worlds to equilibrium and carry on. As you obviously know by now, a gathering of Nobodies known as Organization XIII studied the universe and quickly determined that they were incomplete beings, that they were once seperated into that form and the only way to achieve enlightenment was to unite what they had deemed what was left of their minds with their abandoned bodies and hearts. By doing this they could gain an understanding of the universe that they had once possessed and regain their previous lives."

"And what happened to them anyways?" Troy leant his shoulder into the wall.

"There's no documentation of them disbanding. The last volume of theirs texts is incomplete as I've already told you, as it is missing all documentation of the Vast whatsoever. There is mention throughout the texts of them resorting to some more... obscure means to attract back their own corresponding Heartless and hearts, so there's no way to tell. Perhaps their dangerous research brought them to an untimely end, or maybe they were destroyed by... outside forces. All that matters is that they have provided the framework of the psyche, and those that wish to understand it are currently doing so, while attempting to avoid the pitfalls that lead to the end of Organization XIII."

"...those that wish to understand?"

"People like myself, and people like you. You want to understand what all this chaos is, whether it's personal curiosity or the promise to defend the world you come from. On the other hand, you could have performed the latter quite well under Sirius's command, but I'm not going to jump to any conclusions. Those people are the ones that explore the universe, with the promise of finding enlightenment for ourselves, and all those that wish it. Whatever organization NSX is, it is obvious that it is spreading propaganda to prevent people like you and I from discovering the true nature of the Heartless... and blocking all information regarding the Vast that they themselves apparently know something about."

Troy stepped forward, thrusting his arm out. "But... no, I don't understand this at all. I know that we're in a dangerous situation right here and now and that you say that I'm a dandy Keyper and all, but... why are you telling me all this?"

Auron remained staring off into space. His hands hung behind his back. "...I would be lying if I said that I wasn't interested in the power of your keyblade. However, you have bound it to yourself and have great control over its powers, which will only heighten with more training. I know from the actions you have taken in the past several weeks that you possess a strong will and keen reflexes, and that you wish the best for your friends and comrades. You are still fighting a battle bigger than your world, and you are doing so with great success... even if you don't realize it. It's for that reason that I wish to formally invite you to this great galaxy-wide quest to find your true being... not just for yourself, but for your world. You now know yourself that what I say is true, but I cannot decide for you either way. I will help you and the others see the worlds for what they truly are, and bring light to the ones that need it."

Troy swallowed hard as Auron's hands clamped down on his shoulders with industrial-crane-like force.

"Join us. Join the Covenant."

* * *

**Comments? Queries? Death threats?  
keyvanATualberta.ca**


	8. Covenant Report: Bowser

Hello.

Those that are able to read this at the moment are likely able to determine its author, but I hope that this is a series of texts that will be passed on and expanded upon in the event that I should fall before being able to construct reasonable hypothesi about the behavior of certain psychological pathogens making residence on the many worlds that I visit. Again, I assume that by taking the time to read this you know what 'pathogens' I speak of, and also that many other people have attempted to research their origins, motives and deterrants, and that the greatest of those was the enigmatic Organization XIII, a cluster of self-aware Nobodies that sought to find the hearts and bodies they had been forcibly removed from; cause unknown, and achieve enlightenment that they believed they had lost.

Surviving records indicate that they had been searching for a way to reach a plane of existence that they repeatedly referred to as 'Kingdom Hearts', or where all hearts come to rest. Along the way they began harnessing their new latent powers as sentient Nobodies and were able to gain control over a dominion of lesser-evolved Nobodies to do their bidding. As their research into the matters of the heart broadened, they began to compile their results in what would later be known as the 'Ansem Reports'. Most of these Reports have been lost to the wind over the indeterminate period of time since their conceiving, but enough have been salvaged by my own organization, the Covenant, to pick up where they left off, capitalizing on their gains and avoiding their pitfalls. We desire answers regarding our own existence as Nobodies, and we must tread lightly to ensure that we don't become lost to the world(s) as well.

Namely, as the Heartless and Nobodies have been examined thoroughly, there is little known about the entity that myself and others have deemed the Vast. A mysterious group calling itself NSX has made a campaign out of purging Nobody worlds of both the Heartless and Vast, for motives unknown, but the implication that they know things about the Vast that we don't is alarming. Until we can detain an agent of this NSX, I can only theorycraft about the Vast. What renewed my interest in this is my recent witnessing of a being known as a Koopa being infected with both the Heartless and the Vast, and miraculously recovering. Another Koopa associate of his, a novice Keyper, had also been infected with Vast and is making a recovery, but according to locals in both cases their thought patterns and personalities have changed drastically. This is a step up from the previously observed long-term effect of Vast contamination, but is still to be treated with caution.

In this volume I would like to present the case study of the monarch of the Koopa Kingdom, known at home and abroad as Bowser. In a private interview I was able to gain some first-person insight regarding the infection pattern of the Vast.

**Magistrate of the Covenant**

**Auron**

* * *

**nSX: CoVENaNt rEPorT **

**BoWSer**

* * *

_Three weeks earlier_

Bowser's inner sanctum and closest officials had a situation. Not one as large as they had been afraid of, but something semi-urgent nonetheless. For the most part it was quite easy to shift the blame of Bowser's rampage off his shoulders and point fingers at the Vast, as border guards of the Koopa Troop were literally up to their nonexistant eyebrows in reports of sightings of the alien lifeform. From eyewitness reports, it didn't seem any more civil in its introduction to their other potential hosts than it was to Bowser. For now, the only conceivable plans of action for the Koopa Kingdom were to wait for results from the Mushroom Kingdom's salvaging of keyblades and their subsequent research, or take both matters into their own hands, which seemed less and likely as the upper hierarchy of Bowser's advisors became increasingly fragmented over the issue - that and the Mushroom Kingdom had much more firm support of distant kingdoms in terms of recon, not to mention it possessed a trained military force that was capable of carrying out operations above and beyond beating the crap out of people.

The heat was off for now however. Bowser successfully conducted negotiations of duty with the Mushroom Kingdom after being subdued, and it was generally agreed that the Mushroom Kingdom would shoulder most of the burden involving containment of the Vast. It was generally assumed that he made his quick escape from responsibility for the above reasons, but those closer to Bowser would realize otherwise.

Bowser knew it would happen again.

Wobbling metal echoed through the hallways of the highest level of Last Chance Ramparts. A Troopa slammed a clenched fist into the cherry-red cast-iron doors leading into the master bedroom, balancing a tray with a pile of green mush on it. "I know you're in there! Listen, you can say you're not hungry all you want but skipping 8 meals in a row is a little above and beyond what you call 'sharing your rations'. I'm giving you to the count of ten, or I'll come ram this crap down your throat myself, demotion or not." Another moment passed and finally the servant shoved through with his shoulder.

A weary, pale-skinned Bowser sat atop the shoddy reinforced mattress that still somehow managed to be the most comfortable bed in the installation. He glared over, startled, and coiled tighter the thick blanket that wrapped around himself. "...that was a bold move."

"The smell will get to you eventually." the guard stabbed a fork into the middle of the green sludge. "Now quit acting like that, we're in a better position than we were when you were first contaminated. If you freak out again, at least this time there's a course of action we can take with our connection to Troy."

"You endangered yourself just by entering this room."

"Contrary to what you'd believe, everyone was fighting to be the one to tell you to snap out of it. You have subjects that care about you and what you've done for this settlement, they are willing to work with you to overcome whatever challenges we encounter in developing our nationhood and bonds with neighboring kingdoms. And you should be thinking about demonstrating your ability as a leader to those that think otherwise."

Bowser shook his head, his gaze becoming more distant as he talked. "...you don't get it... I still feel it, creeping and crawling inside of me... Troy shook me up for sure but I can't be totally confident that... stuff won't happen down the line. If something like what happened that night happens again, I dunno how I could live with it, let alone explain myself... trying to operate with this threat looming over my head is nerve-wracking."

The Troopa sat down at the other end of the table. "How exactly did it feel?"

"...I wish I could put it into words..." Bowser drummed his claws on the table with no rhythm to speak of. "...this is gonna sound off-topic, but when the lower guys on the totem pole suggested that we export processed sludge from Dark Land to finance our operations it sounded like a great idea, and the more I spoke with the bigwigs in the Mushroom Kingdom, the more they made it sound like they were completely bonkers for the stuff. Like they couldn't live without it. Right there I realized something. I already had power over a foriegn entity. I already wanted to price-gouge those suckers within every extent of the law of the land. At some point, I wanted to step over and above that. I started cooking up a scheme that would let us nab their princess if they got catty. Somewhere along the way... IT must've started seeping into my head... first I wanted to abuse, then extort, then destroy. I'd completely forgotten about the sludge entirely. That Vast, whatever it was or what level of thought it had - it was bending my MIND."

"...tell me more." the Troopa had taken a pad of paper off a nearby countertop, and was now writing furiously in it as Bowser continued to recount his experience.

* * *

"My name is Royal Guard Krety. Just a few hours ago I'd walked all the way up to King Bowser's private quarters myself to ensure that he received the rations for that evening, after widespread accounts that he had been refusing to attend public mess for the past three days. Duty turned into casual conversation, and casual conversation turned into a first-person account of Bowser's downward spiral. I didn't really think about it before I'd reached the third page, but I was at the forefront of something that people in the Mushroom Kingdom were ready to kill for, pun intended - an empirical documentation of the possible effects of Vast contamination. I shared what I had with the rest of the Royal Guard and secretly sent off a copy of what I'd scribbled down to the Mushroom Kingdom itself. Within days I got a message back, stating that an associate of Troy wished to meet with me to discuss what I thought of what I had heard. His name was, as noted simply in the reply, 'Auron'."

"I appreciate the shout-out," Auron said flatly. "But when I said this wasn't to become public yet... I meant it."

"YET." Krety waved the journal sheet in front of Auron's face. The two were seated in the mess hall during lunch hour, and even though the situation seemed to counteract any semblance of privacy that would have prevented the entire facility from going into a panic over the sheer mention of Vast, the cacophony of several hundred other Troopas burying their faces in their food worked well to drown out anything the two said. "Why do you have to make this a big mystery anyways? If we could just fix up Bowser fast we'd be in a better position to fight this Vash."

"Vast."

"Whatever." Krety eyed the badge pinned to Auron's overcoat, an emblem of the Mushroom Kingdom. Though most of the Koopa authority would have been too dumb to interpret it as that, it was important that Auron made himself known as an emissary of the Mushroom Kingdom (even if he technically wasn't); and by association, Troy, such that when he brought up questions about Bowser's state he wasn't actually comprimising the security of the Koopa Kingdom even further.

"You said you conducted an interview with Bowser?" Auron interrupted Krety's daydreaming.

"Oh, uh... yeah, right here." Krety reached down the collarhole of his shell, digging around for a moment before lifting out another torn journal sheet. Auron reached over and took it from Krety's hand, and adjusted his shades as he glanced over the page.

"Constipated?" Auron said dully.

"Lemme see that." Krety snatched back the paper, squinting hard at a sweat stain on the sheet. "...constrained."

"Judging from your observations, I highly doubt that Bowser would return to a berserk state as he had endured previously," Auron mumbled. "I think with some... treatment however he may be able to make a full recovery. His condition is still crippling to his body and mind, however. Seriously, don't you have anyone else that can take over executive duties within the Koopa Kingdom until he returns to his former self?"

"He's totally adamant about keeping the seat of power to himself. I personally don't think anything suspicous of that, if we tried to split the power this early in the government's development this whole thing could crash down over our heads." Krety blinked. "What 'treatment'?"

"That's for me to know and you to pester me about yet not actually get anywhere." Auron straightened up in his seat, letting his arms rest on his lap. "You, and by that I mean the Kingdom, should actively be in pursuit of another keyblade-"

"This is about the keyblades again?" Krety rolled his eyes. "If that's the solution, let's just drag Troy back here to fix crap for us."

"It is important that there are enough Keypers on call at a moment's notice from the Mushroom Kingdom, as it maintains the shortest distance from all major Vast impact sites. Say what you want, but this is a backwater nation. Besides... you can't rely on one person if you insist that this city you have here can stand on its own two feet. Perhaps you should demonstrate that you as a people are capable of remedying your current situation AND arming yourself."

Krety's gaze started to lose attachment to Auron's. "What a bother..."

"Well, if you don't want to I GUESS I could hassle Troy, although I heard he was a little bitter after having to come out and inspect your sludge shipment that other day. In fact, he's stated he wants to avoid coming out here unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Is that so?" Krety spat.

"But think about this. You could possibly secure a new keyblade through leads that I've gathered, and it may bind itself to you if you make sure to treat it as softly as you can. You will be heralded as a new hero of the Koopa Troop for stopping the monopoly on keyblades that the Mushroom Kingdom currently has and potentially become an elite Keyper in the process, leading to a weakening of Troy's influence. Does that sound like an interesting proposition to you?"

"Y' mean... I'd be a Keyper and all that jazz?"

"I assure you." Auron lied.

"Well you got me sold then! You just gimme what buzz you have and I'll round up a troop to bring that keyblade home!" Krety sprung from his seat. "So, like, when I get this keyblade or whatever it'll be attracted to me? What's that feel like when it links up with you?"

"You won't feel a thing." Auron reached under his coat and took out a roll of parchment, shoving it across the table to Krety. He immediately took out another paper and began to write on it with a nearby pencil. "Alright, you go do that, I have some short business left here and then I must return to the Mushroom Kingdom."

"Awwwwwwwwwright!!" Krety pumped his arms. "Troy might think he's the Goomba's knees now but when when I get done with this keyblade business he's gonna be the target of a celebrity meltdown!" Krety continued to snicker to himself as he skipped away into the nearest aisle, mixing in with the swarm of other soldiers trying to find a seat.

"You really think he's gonna pull that off?" the Troopa sitting next to Auron hacked, crumbs spewing out of his mouth.

"Make sure this gets to Bowser." Auron passed the second pamphlet off to him. "When Krety returns, confiscate the keyblade and send it straight to the castle vault until you can determine who the owner is. Judging by the proximity of it, I'm nearly certain it will attune itself to another Koopa."

"Oh wow." the soldier glanced over the paper quickly before tucking it down his collarhole. "I'll get right on that then."

* * *

A cloud of dust slowly rumbled across one of the dust plains of Land's End, making sure to drift to the side now and then to avoid the massive crevices in the ground that were ready to swallow up anyone or anything that tried to pass straight over them. All the while the sun continued to beat down, baking the earth to an even deeper crisp that made sure that whatever passed through afterwards would be weaving all the more. Krety lead the handful of Troopas immediately behind him, waving his arms in the air as he goose-stepped ahead of the crowd.

"As a soldier I have heard"  
"As a soldier I have heard!"

"Vast freaks and their deathly word"  
"Vast freaks and their deathly word!"

"Ram a keyblade through their face"  
"Ram a keyblade through their face!"

"We're war machines, we'll forfeit grace"  
"We're war machines, we'll forfeit grace!"

"SOUND OFF!"

"One, two"  
"Three, four!"

"Five six, se-ven eight!

"One, two"  
"Three, four!"

"HOO-uh!"

"This is retarded." a Troopa near the front of the group wheezed. "Are we really gonna go on the hunch of whoever rolls up to Last Chance Ramparts as to where a keyblade might be found? We should really be leaving this to the Mushroom Kingdom, they seem to be the pros at this."

Maple quickened her pace, coming up alongside him with a mountain of medical supplies strapped to a rucksack on her back. "Seriously, Tern, we shoulda just got Troy out here."

"You're the freaking vice president of the 'official Troy fanclub', I know better than to keep listening to ANYTHING you say after I hear the word 'Troy'." Tern grunted, hoisting up his own backpack moments before Maple clobbered him to the ground with her own enormous baggage.

"Oh, you're both gonna be eating your words, let me assure you as much," Krety sneered. "When I get this keyblade and put it to good use, any household name that poor sap Troy has is OUT the window. Seriously, how do any of you think that Troy has any vested interest in the well-being of the Koopa Troop anymore anyways? That creep is probably being hand-fed grapes by the prissy royalty of the Mushrooms! I don't care what kind of crush you have on him missy, as long as you're out here you're going to be smiling and nodding at everything I say, got it?"

Maple sighed. "Yes, sir."

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Maple's voice cracked. "YES, SIR!"

"Well I certainly appreciate your vote of confidence, MEDIC, as we have now arrived."

"What are you talking about, there's nothing for miles," Tern muttered. "except the possibility of fatal sunstroke."

"You, drop your crap over here." Krety tipped his head at one of the rear Troopas. With a strained growl he dropped his supplies, and Krety began digging through them and seperating a set of rappeling gear. "...alright, I think we got what we need here, you others in the back, start getting your harnesses on, we're going to be checking all the crevices in this immediate area. And before any of you start complaining, think of it less as life-risking spelunking and more as getting in the shade. Everyone will go to the holes I assign to them and we're gonna tear up this place."

Maple muttered under her breath. "Tern. Let's sta-."

"Maple will be with me of course." Krety had already finished pounding a post into the ground and was working on firmly mounting one of the rappeling systems onto it. He winked at her as he started fitting his harness on, causing her to cringe and stumble noticably backwards.

One of the other Troopas stood a distance away, facing into the wind with a walkie-talkie-type device pressed up against his earhole. He nodded several times before cupping his hands over the bottom and turning back towards the group. "Oh you guys aren't gonna believe this. Last Chance Ramparts is having a big crisis right now, apparently no one's been able to find Bowser for the last 5 hours. People are starting to think that he's gone AWOL."

"That can't be," Tern grumbled. "We're the Royal Guard, we know him better than anyone, if he had any incentive to flee we would've been the first ones to know."

"This is troublesome," another Troopa moaned as he picked up a bundle of posts in each hand. "Maybe we should hold off on doing this until we can figure out what's happening at-"

"NO." Krety cast an arm to the side, still fumbling with his harness's connection. "No. No. It took long enough for us to get out here, now we're going to drop down and investigate this. The faster we get that keyblade, the faster we can go home and mope around the palace for another couple weeks until the next remotely exciting mission comes along." Krety's lips curled up as he added another bit under his breath. "...and the closer I get to both making Troy irrelevant and overthrowing that incompetent slab of lard Bowser."

Maple started buckling her own harness on. "Whatever, let's get this over with then." She continued snarling to herself as she watched Krety hop down into the gaping crack in the ground. She cast a glance around, watching as the other dozen soldiers paired up and headed off towards the other maws. Taking a pith helmet from the pile of supplies, she tested its lamp before following Krety into the darkness. Any semblence of tolerance and/or comfort that Maple could muster up didn't last long, however.

"What size of shell DO you have?!" Krety yelled up from the pit. "I can see up your legho-"

"SHUT UP."

And shutting up would occur as the two spent the next ten minutes in silence descending into the wound in the earth. Soon the daylight above was just a speck, and it was becoming obvious that the walls of the crevasse were not narrowing - in fact, they were becoming wider apart. Krety took one last step downwards - and screeched as he realized he was stepping off into thin air. He scrambled back up, staring down into the darkness.

"Ugh," Maple groaned. "Now what..."

"T-there's nothing below."

Maple rolled her eyes. "You were all gung-ho a minute ago... rappel down until you reach the end of your rope, I'll tie you to mine in case anything goes wrong."

Krety grimaced. "...yeah, that's right... I'm gonna get that keyblade..."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Are you ready?"

"Go ahead."

Krety continued his descent as Maple watched. After sinking another 15-20 feet into the darkness, Krety stopped with a clunk. He had reached the end of their line.

"So?" Maple sighed.

"Oh, hang on," Krety mumbled. "I see the ground a couple more feet down. I'm going to detach." Maple listened as Krety's harness came undone, and he tumbled down to the ground. Straightening himself, he waved for Maple to do the same.

"Now what?" Maple glanced around, carving a path through the darkness with her pith helmet. Krety kept his facing forward.

"Now we're going to have a looksee." Krety licked his lips.

"How do we get out, I mean." Maple said flatly.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Maple nearly stumbled off her feet. "Wait, WHAT?! You were supposed to think of that before you jumped down! What are you thinking?! Do we even have any way of contacting the others like this?! The batteries in these things only last 2 hours max and we have no way of getting back up to our ropes, and-"

"Oh, shut up." Krety had already started to jog off into the darkness. His eyes glowed as his feet plowed through the inches of dust, only a 3-foot-long beam of light in front to guide him. "What matters more... is what I can sense right in front of me..."

"Have you completely lost-" Maple gasped, shielding her eyes as a bright flash of pale green light filled the large cavern. For a brief moment Maple could see the endless caverns for miles around herself, and her ultravision faded as soon as it became available. Rubbing her eyes she could only see Krety with his arms hovering over a faintly glowing crystal lodged in the ground. Within, Maple could see the faint outline of the most basic of keyblades. "...what?! Is that it? Hurry, let's radio the others and get them to help us move that out of here, this place is seriously starting to creep me out..."

"No, I'm afraid that's not going to happen," Krety moaned. "'cause its owner is already preparing to take it..." with one swift motion, Krety tore the pick from his spelunking belt and raised it above his head - and smashed it into the crystal. "You see, Maple? You don't need Troy to keep this kingdom together, not when I have a keyblade for myself that I can use to govern and defend everyone with! A task that I'll perform better than Troy or Bowser ever could!!"

Maple's eyes flew open. "Krety?!"

Both of them jerked, however, when a pained roar echoed through the catacombs. Krety grit his teeth, turning around to find that the pick had barely pierced the outer layer of the crystal. He furiously tried to tear it away as the bellows rose in the distance, with no luck. The sharp instrument was securely jammed. "...no! NO!! This is MY power!! MINE!! Does it need some kind of magic word or something?!"

"Is that the only reason you agreed to come on this mission?" Maple shook both of her fists. "You're despicable!"

"I'll tell you what's despicable!" Krety shrieked. "Those two lunkheads claiming they're capable of ruling and/or fighting their way out of a paper bag! I will bring GLORY to the Koopa Kingdom, and myself!"

Maple covered her earholes as the howling swept over her like a tidal wave. Before she could give out a scream in response, the ground collapsed under their feet. Maple and Krety tumbled through the air for what seemed like minutes before slamming into even deeper dirt, both their pith helmets buried under the debris. The two slowly pushed themselves back to their feet, tending to their bruises as the keyblade's casing sat at the top of a pile of stones, continuing to pulse peacefully.

Krety coughed out a mouthful of sand. "You get me? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is going to get in my way!"

"...m-m-maybe that-t m-might." Maple stammered.

"What are you blabbing ab..." Krety looked over his shoulder, slowly turning around to face what he saw in the darkness. A gigantic being of the same pitch black surrounding them, but with a faint white outline that made it appear clear as day. Its gigantic statue-like body was firmly lodged in the ground, its torso held up by a pair of black, pillar-like arms that entrenched themselves firmly in the dirt. A pair of solid white eyes shot open, and a gaping maw full of shining white teeth revealed itself as the creature let out another deafening blast.

"...you!" Krety snarled. "I'm not afraid of you!!" Krety began to limp towards the keyblade yet again, leaving Maple paralyzed where she stood. "If it just goes for Maple first... I can get the keyblade and fight my way out of here... urgh..."

Yet again, Krety would be proven dead wrong as the creature lifted its left 'paw', screaming in fury as it shot the massive tree-trunk-like appendage at where Krety stood. Krety's face paled as he realized that the beast was obviously not tracking him by sight. As he prepared for the worst, however, he faintly saw a small cluster of pebbles fall through a small ray of light. The beast's arm suddenly snapped up again as the ground above it exploded and a large object struck it straight in its hunched back. Falling to the ground, it let out a pained screech and the massive projectile quickly rolled away.

"That's..." Maple blubbed.

"You!!" Krety groaned. He let out a hack as a taloned paw reached out and wrapped firmly around his shell, lifting him into the air.

"How about you say that to my face?" Bowser snarled, his red eyes burning.

"Hi-High-Highne-" Krety felt the wind leaving every orifice of his body as Bowser slammed him into the ground with all of his weight. Another mushroom cloud of dust consumed everything nearby. Bowser threw the unconscious Koopa to the side and turned his focus to Maple.

"Who authorized this mission?!" Bowser bellowed.

"K-K-Krety said he-he... hic... Krety said he had been cleared by-"

"Krety was under review for dismissal for comments regarding dissention..." Bowser turned his focus back to Maple. "He was not to leave the Rampart grounds without standing trial! I should have known he would try more bold moves to run me out once he saw me in terrible physical condition..."

"Are you alright?" Maple coughed, starting to regain her breath.

"...I can't tell..." Bowser wheezed, starting to sulk. "I just.. knew I had to come here, because I knew... that... what Krety was trying to do was-"

"Taking something that was your own."

"Who else is there?!" Bowser spun around. He was ready to deliver the same fate to the next person to sneak up on him. What he found instead made him loose all tension in his body. The crystal sitting atop the mount glowed with its eerie green light once more, cracks slowly starting to grow from where Krety's pick pierced it. It tumbled down the rough incline, continuing to shatter as it smashed against the rocks on its way down. What remained of the coating shattered into splinters, and the short keyblade stuck itself into the dirt inches away from Bowser's massive hind legs.

The earth shook again as the black beast slammed both its appendages into the dirt, fully standing once more. Bowser's pupils dilated as he spotted the black ooze seeping out of the ground from where its pillars were mounted. "...that..."

Tendrils shot out of the abomination's face as it pounded the ground impatiently. It shifted onto one leg, striking down at Bowser with the other. Bowser in the meanwhile tried to rip the weapon off the ground, nearly shifting off balance as it was far heavier than its short stature gave away. As Bowser finally tore it out of the dirt with both hands, it exploded in a shower of sick green light, stretching out into a spire of twisted, rusted metal. As a massive red spike suddenly tore out of the top end of the blade, its weight normalized in Bowser's hands, and it quickly became light as a feather in his grip.

"If Troy can make minced meat out of me with one of these things..." Bowser's grin threatened to turn his face inside out. "...just imagine what I can do to you." Bowser let out a guttural roar as he hurled the massive blade forward, ramming the iron spike through the bottom of the monster's limb. In response the leg extended more from the torso in an explosion of black sludge on both ends, eventually sending Bowser flying back into the dirt with a thunderous crash and a shower of rubble. He opened one of his squinted eyes, peering up into the darkness as the flat bottom of the pillar plunged down through the air at him, ready to pound him into the earth. "...I've had just about enough... of this VAST CRAP!!." He grabbed onto both ends of the massive keyblade, letting out a yell as he thrust the pointed edge of it into the bottom of the column. Finally running out of sludge to cut through, Bowser smirked in grim satisfaction as he felt the weapon rupture a fleshy layer underneath. The beast let out a mortal screech as that limb suddenly flailed up in the air, more of the black substance spraying out in a jet from the gaping wound.

Bowser rolled back, hurling himself forward back onto his feet. He clamped his hands back onto the hilt of the blade, holding it high in the air as he leapt forward at the remaining support. Sending himself into a spin, he struck it dead-on, and in one colossal blow caused the entire lower half of the beast's limb to explode in a shower of ebony sludge. With its support completely destroyed, the upper torso fell the ground with an earthshaking impact. Bowser quickly righted himself and leapt toward the beast's exposed face. His eyes widened, however, as more tendrils shot out from around its head and wrapped firmly around Bowser's limbs. He suddenly jerked forward several feet, dropping his keyblade and was subsequently seperated from it. "...rragh!!"

Maple leapt from her hiding spot, ignoring her common sense for a moment before the monster let out another ear-piercing screech, stopping her dead in her tracks. Holding back her trembling, she darted forward again, struggling to cradle the gigantic weapon in her arms. She slowly jogged forward, nearly falling forward as she hurled it back at Bowser. She winced, however, as she realized its trajectory would lodge the top spike firmly in Bowser's side. Instead of piercing into him, however... it simply hung in midair, with the point barely pricking his skin. Bowser quickly shot a glance to Maple, and spasmed in place as the blade simply shot into his hide, leaving behind nothing but a ripple.

"What?!..." Maple stumbled back again.

"It's... what is this feeling? Is it... lending me its power directly?" Bowser's pupils dilated further as a surge of adrenaline tore through him. "All... this... strength!! RrrrrRRRRAAAAGGHHHH!!" Bowser let out a howl that shook the foundations of the cave. Slowly he pulled his arms back, the muscles underneath bulging to nearly double their existing size. In one enormous shift, he ripped the tendrils toward him, causing the golem to shift in his direction. Planting his feet into the ground and falling in the other direction, he tore the monster nearly 30 times his size off the ground entirely and into the air. Maple screeched and dove for cover as Bowser began to spin around and around, turning into a blur before letting the colossal projectile go in a hammerthrow. Bedrock caved in as it impacted the far side of the chamber, burying the lower torso of the creature under tons of debris. Several final boulders fell, trapping the head in place. Bowser reached his hand under his rippling skin, tearing out the keyblade once more.

"Now, if you'll excuse me..." Bowser clamped his meaty hand down firmly on the hilt of the blade, giving it one final throw across the expansive cavern. "I have executive matters to attend to!!" The beast screamed as the iron spike lodgeditself firmly into its forehad with an audible crunch, and slowly its main body began to dissolve into the base sludge. The haunting screech began to fade away as its head faded into thin air. Bowser caught the blade as it dismounted and hurtled back at him, shifting one foot backwards to absorb the momentum. He stuck it firmly in the ground and let out a tired wheeze.

"S-sire, are you alri..." Maple jogged forward, but stopped as Bowser slouched forward.

"It makes my blood boil..." Bowser sighed. "...that people would try to rip apart this kingdom not only when it's just getting started, but when that unity's the only thing keeping us alive with the Vast tearing up the place. I kept myself locked up, thinking that it was going to be my corruption by who-knows-what that undid everything... but now I realize... that's exactly what it wanted to do, keep me from taking more affirmative action against it. I thought I was doing the Troop a favor by not them risking another rampage caused by me, that someone else would take charge until I could get in better shape... but it's too early. The kingdom is not stable enough... the temptation is still too great for others to seize power for themselves. Troy's the one who could make things right, but he has greater aspirations than that! I should've made my own squad to hunt down those keyblades, that way something like this never would've happened! The course of action I took was selfish."

"...then what now?" Maple mumbled.

"What's it look like?!" Bowser roared. "Now that this thing's in my hands, I can stand up to whatever's trying to split this world up myself!! First things first, I... we gotta scrap together enough keyblades to make our own anti-alien squad! Once the Koopa Troop is self-sustaining, we don't have to worry about where the keyblade that saves us is coming from! We won't be the whelps sitting in the shadow of the Mushroom Kingdom screeching for help, we'll settle things ourselves and be just as every bit powerful as them! We're gonna be allies alright, but it's gonna be THEM asking US for every little bit of assistance!"

As Bowser continued to rant, he seized up every once in a while. Maple watched with wide eyes as clumps of Bowser's hide turned coal-black, flaking off and leaving fully-healed flesh underneath. "Sire, you're..."

"Well, look here," Bowser chuckled. "Apparently this gunk knows it's fighting a losing battle! That's right! Get OUT OF ME!!"

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Not entirely." Bowser coughed for a moment. "...but everything's going to be alright."

The two looked up as beams of sunlight began to cascade down. Dirt rained down as another hole was broken in the roof of the underground chamber, and three of the Royal Guard could be seen beginning to rappel themselves down inside. Bowser and Maple waved to their rescuers as the darkness of the cavern began to unravel. Cracks and rumbles echoed throughout the chamber - it would likely not be a chamber much longer.

* * *

It was easy to see that the Koopa Troop had discovered their first keyblade simply by listening to the town gossip of Last Chance Ramparts. You see, I had already known full well by talking to people around the Koopa city-state that Krety had ambitions to rule the new Koopa kingdom, but obviously didn't have the means of directly usurping a ruler that happened to be 20 times his own size and getting away with it. With the discovery of keyblades all around the world, however, Krety would have had a means of gaining influence in the kingdom that could have very well resulted in a shift in power in the Koopa sanctum. It's theoretically possible that Troy could very well have attempted the same thing, although the circumstances under which he obtained his own keyblade left him little understanding of the keyblade's power, let alone the impact possessing one would have on his reputation.

Bowser, on the other hand... if he were truly interested in the well-being of the Koopa state he would overcome his affliction and easily stop Krety. Even though the keyblade would not have activated in Krety's possession, there's no telling what he would have done with it afterwards. Even if it were brought back to the fortress, it would go straight to the vault and Bowser himself would likely have no contact with the keyblade itself, leaving it possibly lost forever. I gambled both the stability of the Koopa Troop and the keyblade itself on Bowser, and Bowser pulled through. I sincerely believe and/or hope that the Koopa Troop manages to become as diverse and powerful as the Mushroom Kingdom itself, and so far it looks to be on the right track. Bowser has gained limited immunity to both Heartless and Vast contamination by gaining ownership of a keyblade, and now leads the nation's Keyper squad. Striding into battle in the heaviest, most powerful custom-built alloy-composite armor created by the Koopa Troop, he has become the backbone of their anti-contaminant forces, and a devastating weapon in this world's defense force, while still maintaining control over the diplomatic actions of the kingdom. Since the incident he has granted additional executive powers to the members of the Royal Guard, and their screening has become much more thorough.

I believe his ailment has lost most of its negative effects, although he is still likely not entirely pure. He will likely continue to make his passive-agressive tendancies known, although not quite as blatantly as before. It is possible that he may lash out again in the future. Perhaps he already has.

**Magistrate of the Covenant**

**Auron**

* * *

Krety's eye slowly opened, revealing nothing but darkness. The rocks around him shifted with dull cracks. He breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to shift his arm upwards to brush away the debris.

It didn't move.

"...hm?..." Krety ignored the pounding in his head for a moment, trying to turn his head and regain his bearings. Again, no response. "...okay, this is totally not funny. Ugh... how did Bowser even figure out what I was trying to do... I told those peons not to say anything to anyone about my plans. Now, I just gotta climb out of this pile of rocks I got knocked into. Hrgh..." Krety tried to shake away the debris, again with no luck. He winced as dirt crumbled down and caked around his eye. "...what? Man, I wonder how much dirt got kicked up by that thing eating Bowser... now, I just gotta dig outta this heap and find that keyblade!"

Exactly how much of that 400-meter 'heap' he would get through was best left to the imagination.


	9. Instant Replay: Part Two

Sirius sat out in the field, night creeping over the palace gardens for what seemed like the thousandth time to him. He would have taken any other time besides this one to make a sarcastic comment to himself about the fact. Right now, he had more important things rampaging through his mind. It was a term that he was embarassed, frightened even, to admit. Nonetheless, he sat within the orb of Vast, staring down at the ground as a thousand thoughts pillaged what patience he had left with his surroundings. He blinked repeatedly, holding his arms tightly to his side and trying to ignore the shivering that radiated out from them regardless. Sirius finally looked up, and let out a hiss to himself. He stared coldly out between the remaining guards that watched over him. Losing most of what composure he still had, the mumbling under his breath became more audible.

"...Ameile."

Sirius kept making sudden, paranoid movements with his body as the name continued to sink in. He silently cursed and praised himself at the same time for managing to select a physical form that had the capabilites of limited telepathy. When Troy obtained a keyblade as powerful as the Chronicle, and blatantly went against the plans of Sirius's superiors, it made it clockwork to band together weak-minded fools such as Pokey and Valentina to go after the keyblade. Sirius could easily set up the mindgames required to seize the keyblade from their possession afterwards. Again, however, that was not at the forefront of his thought. Maybe the plan would still succeed, perhaps not. This name, this little particle of information, however... it was making all of Sirius's self-rejected assumptions fall into place.

Troy's sudden change in attitude, his ability to claim a keyblade of such power... he had encountered situations like this before. None of those keyblades were as powerful as the Chronicle, however, nor had their owners been as unexperienced as Troy.

"...those two... they should be nothing but myth." Sirius slowly pushed himself up to his feet. "...the legend of Ederick and Ameile stretches back thousands of years... there's no way that Ameile's keyblade should be ready to give itself up that easily. Unless the one beckoning it were to have an unbreakable emotional link to its creator. There is no way that the Nobody of Ederick could be able to survive in perfect condition to this very day... not with millenia of physical stimuli and self-reflection. None of those that lost themselves to the darkness during the Exodus could fully keep themselves together in this forgotten galaxy..."

"Keep it down over there." one of the half-awake Mushroom guards nearby slurred.

"If the Chronicle truly is the lost keyblade of Ameile, then its latent power must be beyond any other keyblade that I have encountered... in that case, it is even more imperative that I return it, along with its wielder, to the hive mind... perhaps then, I will find the truth I seek..."

Sirius sat back down cross-legged, exchanging a glare with the guard. Blocking his environment out of his mind, he began to focus on his psychic link again, bridging the hundreds of miles between him and a slightly irritated Illidan Stormrage. Sirius let his eyes float open, peering through the superhuman visage of the warrior elf as he strode down the corridors of the abandoned underground bunker. Sirius took a deep breath, regaining his composure as the hallways bobbed around him.

Illidan.

"What is it?" Illidan snarled.

I'm going to make this quick. You must abandon your post for the time being. There's been some complications involving seizing Troy's keyblade. We need to approach this from a different angle. For now y-

Illidan chuckled. "You must really think you are a work of art. But I hate to inform you, your perception is not as godly as you make it out to be. Of course I realize that Troy's keyblade possesses supernatural qualities. That is why I am pursuing it."

What do you mean?

"I must thank you for giving me this lead, bird-man. I have been quite aware of your plans for some time; did you honestly think that I would go ahead and assume that you wouldn't try to negotiate it back into your own hands? In the process of your aid, however, you've given me all the information and surveillance on this weapon that I could possibly want. I will seize the Chronicle and employ it myself. You've outlived your usefulness a long time ago, pity that I couldn't meet you in person to end you and seal the deal."

You don't understand, Illidan, if this keyblade is associated with who I think, then it will be NSX's greatest asset in the-

"I believe this conversation is over. You will undoubtedly send more peons at me to take it back? I WILL be prepared. And YOU, on the other hand, will not."

Sirius lurched forward as energy crackled around his shoulders. Sirius sulked to the ground, feeling his head spin from the feedback of Illidan successfully shrugging off the telepathic link. Sirius trembled in rage as he fell forward and planted his taloned hands on the ground, trying as hard as he could to suppress a guttural yell.

"I'm going to have to get out of here the hard way." Sirius growled.

* * *

**nSX: CHaPTeR 9**

**lt3ytl3xbcl;'xb879fe **

**InSTaNt rEplAy: paRT 2**

* * *

"Join the Covenant."

Troy slowly turned his head away, but quickly realized that he wasn't going to be escaping Auron's iron grip in the immediate future, much less the intense stare that would bore through his head sooner or later. "...do I get a badge, or discounts at fast food places, or..."

"Like I said, we share all the same goals as you, except that... we may be going to greater lengths to accomplish them. We want to get out of these hollow worlds we've been implanted in and seek what is missing from us... the hearts that the Organization has alluded to countless times in their own pursuit. This NSX, their agents have been against us the whole time. They know things about the advancing Heartless and Vast that we don't. There is some kind of conspiracy going on here and the Covenant will not rest until they know what it is about."

"You act like that's NOT what I'm going for at this point." Troy muttered.

"If you come with us, I guarantee that we can work together and get more answers than if we were to go our seperate ways. The major reason I'm being serious about this, however, is that you will need to make sacrifices in order for this to work."

"Elaborate."

"You will most likely end up leaving this world. For how long I don't know."

"Why don't you talk to Peach about that? She's more into that interplanetary exploration thing, although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relatively interested in that kind of thing."

"Because you are the one with the willpower to actually survive it."

Troy shook his head, sighing. "Let's just finish this, you can go home, I can go home, once we get these freaks out of our hair and everything goes back to normal I'm going to-"

"This doesn't end here, Troy," Auron called out. Troy ground to a halt instantly, visibly cringing from the sudden sternness in Auron's voice. "...you've already realized that the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast will continue giving you trouble from hereonin, now that you have that keyblade. Even if you had no ambition to learn more, which I highly doubt at this point... you will not be able to fight off rival Keypers, or the symbiotes; let alone NSX forever. The only way you WILL truly 'finish this' is if you reach beyond your horizons and grasp the truth behind everything yourself."

"And when I leave, then what?" Troy spun around. "Who keeps this place safe? I haven't even SEEN any of the other Keypers actually doing anything. I'm not saying I won't be on my rear when this is done, but-"

"There are 854 registered Keypers between the Mushroom Kingdom, Koopa Troop and Sarasaland regimes. You have not been fighting the Heartless and Vast by yourself, although it may feel that way. I seriously hope that statement was a lapse of judgement... this is one of few worlds that has been able to stand against the two entirely on its own. Typically worlds like these that are under siege from rogue Keypers, Heartless and Vast all at the same time end up either conglomerates of NSX through their intervention, or completely destroyed in the midst of conflict between the domain's inhabitants and agents of NSX themselves. We have the rapid recognition and mobilization of Keypers, as well as the diligent work of the Keypers themselves, to thank. As the first of many, you bore an incredible responsibility in making the keyblades' powers known to your own people, in addition to helping spread its legend. And that is why I am pleading for your help now - that legend needs to be made public. Not just here, but everywhere... everywhere that the Covenant can touch."

"That still doesn't explain why NSX would let everyone embrace that 'legend'..." Troy trailed off.

"That's another mystery we have to deal with in due time, but for now... please understand where I'm coming from."

Troy slumped against the wall, folding his arms. He bit his lip and looked away, eventually rolling his eyes back to meet Auron's. "...leaving this world you say?"

"Yes. Not permanently of course, but you will find our residence to be a home away from home regardless."

"One condition." Troy jabbed an index finger into the air and let his other arm slouch.

"Name it."

"Have you met Selphie? Mario, Luigi?"

"Yes."

"Well," Troy pressed himself upwards, slumping towards Auron with his hands cradled behind his head. "It seems that all three of them got dropped on this world for no apparent reason. None of us, or any of them, have any clue what circumstances got them dumped here, and I'm sure if it were to seize a keyblade, we would've found it long ago. My terms are simple: they don't necessarily have to come with us, but I gotta figure out where they all came from so we can return them safe and sound."

Auron nodded. "I can devote resources to that."

"Well, I guess we got us a deal then." Troy jabbed out a hand. Auron looked down at it, and hesitated for a moment before weakly grabbing it. Both got halfway through an affirmative nod before the hallway around them shook violently. "...what was that..."

"Move." Auron said coldly.

Troy pivoted in place, stumbling backwards at what he saw. Of in the distance the tiles that made up the four sides of the corridor were vanishing, and as its disappearance picked up speed the two could see that its construction was not simply evaporating. The panels were completely flying out in random directions, revealing that the hallway was in the middle of a great domed arena. Massive blue spotlights pulsed eerily from the roof, lighting up the grate flooring beneath and the large pipes that dotted the rim of the chamber.

"Okay children, break time's over," Heihachi boomed. "Do you mind coming down so we can finish this and I can get that keyblade? Much appreciated."

"You..." Troy snarled. "You're the one on the intercom... if I can just get YOU, then..."

"Troy, wait, there-" Auron cast his arm out but anything he said fell on deaf ears. Troy leapt forward and plunged out of the collapsing antechamber to the ground. He braced the solid 30 foot tall perfectly, letting out a roar as he lunged forward across the room at Heihachi with his weapon raised. A dull groan made the room shudder again, and Troy stumbled to a dead stop as Heihachi continued to stand with his arms folded. Troy let out a screech as the grating underneath him suddenly exploded and a massive white fist burst through, sending him into the air and clear across the 100-foot arena. Troy landed with a roll and painfully slammed his way across the ground to a stop. He pressed himself up slowly and wiped the dirt off his face, watching the fist melt away into the floor. The body of Giygas slowly phased up through the grating, gaining a humanoid form. A bulging eye burst out from its chest, flitting about before locking its attention on Troy as he finally managed to climb back to his feet.

"Just the guy I've been looking for." Troy wheezed, grinning as he grabbed the loose keyblade from the floor. "I've got something you might w..." Troy completely flew off his feet as the room rumbled again. "...for the love of... NOW what?!"

"That's Giygas's warm way of saying..." Heihachi looked up into the air at Auron as he jumped down to join the fray. "...you will make an excellent morsel. A morsel nonetheless."

"It was from a distance." Auron slowly began to step back.

"Hah, don't tell me YOU'RE the one getting cold feet this time, don't worry, I'll divert my attention from Troy if it makes you feel any b-"

Auron covered his eyes as the wall behind Heihachi exploded and four flashes of blue light leapt from the smoke. Heihachi lurched forward as the whirling beacon pierced straight through his chest, howling through the air. Troy's heart stopped as both of them whizzed by opposite sides of his head, slamming into the wall behind him. Troy tried his best to make the subsequent glance over his shoulder as casual as possible. "...keyblades?" Troy spun around, eyeing the two star-type weapons lodged into the wall and still smoking with a blue haze.

The grin remained on Heihachi's face, with some effort, as he crumpled to the ground from the gaping wounds in his chest. "W-wha-what is the m-urgh-meaning of THIS?!"

Illidan strode through the hole in the wall, flicking his left wrist upwards. A bright blue flash brought the Cocytus back to his hand, both ends glowing with the same unearthly light. "...I see the conglomerate has already gathered. You're still not competent enough to do anything to Troy, however, and I have to thank you for that. You've made our first encounter so much easier. Unfortunately... you're going to have to step aside now. I still have use for Giygas, you on the other hand..."

"So you're the leader of this band..." Auron muttered.

"Leader? I'm not leader, nor have I fallen to one. Sirius was kind enough to guide all of these fools together in an attempt to scavenge the Chronicle from your bones, but he wasn't quite keen enough to realize that at least one of his little mercenary posse would have the same idea. He seems to be getting cold feet after some consideration of exactly who's Nobody you are, but that's not important to me... what matters now is that keyblade, and its power, sitting contently in my collection."

"Rrgh..." Troy hunched down. "...this keeps getting better and better..."

"Troy." Auron mumbled.

"Hm?"

"Let me handle this."

"Elaborate."

"His weapon is a keyblade... and its power is immense. I don't doubt that this Keyper is more powerful than anything you've happened to come across so far. What matters is injecting your Vast into Giygas. I don't know how, but it's your task to subdue Giygas. I'll try to keep-"

"I don't think you understand," Illidan grabbed the center of the star with both hands, tearing its shafts apart and shifting one off to his opposite hand. "No one will be... how do you put it... keeping me occupied. My name... is Illidan Stormrage... and I am the rightful heir to Chronicle!!"

Troy stumbled back as a blast of wind hit him. Auron's head snapped up. "No!"

Illidan had already left his starting position in a flash, ending in a deafening clash of metal milliseconds later as Auron intercepted the twin glaives mere feet from where Troy stood. Illidan let out a roar as he leapt back and rocketed forwards again, and Auron spun his own blade down vertically to shield himself from another pair of lightning-quick slashes. Illidan spun again, slamming the handle of his blade into the Murasama's hilt and bashing it into Auron's face. Illidan shifted forward again in a skewer straight to Auron's chest, which deflected violently as Troy swept in front of him, catching both blades inbetween the teeth of the Chronicle.

"You make this too easy!!" Illidan released one of the blades, leaving it entirely in midair as he slammed his free fist into Troy's throat. Troy let out a hack as he released his own weapon, grappling onto Illidan's arm and biting down hard on his wrist. Illidan stumbled back with a growl, letting go of the other glaive. Before Troy and Auron could backpedal any amount, Illidan cast his arms forward and sent the levitating blades rocketing at them. Troy spun around as he fell backwards and grimaced as one of the blades nicked his infected hand. Auron growled as the other pierced entirely into his shoulder. Troy spun again and slammed his other hand down on its hilt, ripping it out. Troy's eyes widened as blood began to pour out of the wound - before he had any time to grasp the concept the glaive in his own hand burst into blue flame, consuming his whole arm. Troy screeched as he threw the weapon back into the air, causing it to immediately turn around and shoot back at him. Troy completely bent over backwards, falling down as the weapon scorched over him and into the dome's wall.

Troy continued tending to his arm as Illidan marched towards him. Troy's eyes settled on Auron who sat on on knee a short distance away, a hand helplessly trying to apply pressure to his wound. Troy's head suddenly snapped up, watching as both glaives locked back into Illidan's hand - and as he prepared to plunge both glaives into his chest.

"Will people learn... that the death from above thing... NO LONGER WORKS!!"

Illidan screamed as he slung both weapons down, his face twisting as suddenly Troy flipped onto his side between both weapons and thrust the Chronicle clean through his upper torso. As Illidan stumbled back he yanked Troy back onto his feet, causing the blade's teeth to rip out sideways. The air rippled as the weapon phased through the organic target as it had with Nightmare. Illidan licked his lips, rubbing the mental wound. "...the more power you let flow from that weapon... the more a tantalizing target it becomes."

Troy's eyes went wide as the air rushed around him with a deep whoosh that came from all directions. He looked up in time to see a massive white fist hurtling down from above. Troy leapt to the side, tumbling briefly before being bounced back in the air yet again both by the shockwave and flying shards of the metal grate. Giygas rose from its kneel, the eye continuing to trace Troy as he stumbled backwards on the way back to his feet.

"Our friend here isn't much of an audience-goer. I simply wanted to step in to get the... diversion out of the way."

"Auron..." Troy ground his teeth, glancing over his shoulder. The wounded samurai finished the ascent back to his feet, clutching the shoulder of his bloodstained robe.

"Anyways," Illidan threw his arms up in the air. "I wouldn't want to risk a battle with a Keyper as powerful as yourself, hm? That's why I have this beast here keeping me company. Letting him use his primal Nobody powers to reduce you to a quivering pile of a being would make this whole keyblade seizure much easier on me. It matters not what your keyblade's legacy is, or who once wielded it, once you can no longer contemplate such things let alone retain your sanity..."

Troy jerked in place as the eye in front of him dilated. He started to step backwards from Illidan and the towering Giygas as soft pulses of purple light began to fill the air. The Chronicle clattered to the ground. "...n-no... not again! I won't let you turn me into that freak!!"

"Think of how wonderful it would be to not have a mortal concern in the world... nothing but the mindless consumption of the mind itself... you could devour your friends in one moment and not even care..."

"GAAarrgh!!" Troy fell to his knees, clutching his arm. The Vast hand throbbed violently. "...it feels like it's going to b-" Troy was interrupted as his palm suddenly bubbled outwards, turning into a boil that nearly spontaneously exploded outwards. "AAAAAAAUGGHH!!"

"Let yourself go, Troy," Illidan snarled. "Submit yourself to your primal desires..."

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!" Troy stumbled backwards, stopping next to Auron. "I won't let you erase me... or let you sit here throwing subliminal threats at anyone else!!" Troy's arm shot out as he crouched, latching onto the Murasama that sat lifelessly on the ground. In one gargantuan heave, Troy slung the massive blade over his shoulder with both hands, suddenly turning and charging back towards Giygas.

"Troy!! What are you do... ing." Auron winced and slammed his fingers over top of the growing wound. How in the world is he able to lift my keyblade?!...

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!" Troy's arms went limp and he whirled straight at the primal Nobody in front of him. The bloody eye suddenly went pale, and shined an intense white light over Troy as he neared. Troy let out a breathless scream as he hurled the blade as hard as he could, going blind as the sword pinwheeled into the white abyss. Troy felt his whole body go numb as the light vanished as fast as it came. Troy's limbs slowly regained lethargic feeling as an unearthly scream tore through his mind. White slime exploded all over Troy as his sudden suspension from reality ended and he crashed to the ground.

"How could you?!..." Illidan backed away, summoning both glaives back to his hands. Everyone stared on as the Masamune sat nearly entirely embedded in the eye of Giygas, from which the creature's lifeblood continued to spew around the chamber.

"If you wanted a savage Nobody... YOU GOT IT!!" Troy rocketed forward again, leaping into the air and slamming his right hand around the hilt of the daikatana. The Chronicle flew off the ground and was intercepted by Troy's Vast hand. Troy slammed the toothed end of the weapon into the wound, tearing his way into the gunky mess and turning the teeth sideways. Grabbing both weapons, he split his legs and tore both keyblades through both sides of Giygas, ripping its upper torso to shreds. Another scream tore through the air, stunning both Auron and Illidan as Troy completely disemboweled the Nobody.

White and beige slime scattered around the floor as Giygas rapidly degenerated. Troy whirled around as the substance began to recollect, quickly reshaping itself back into an orb that balanced on the ground before beginning to levitate. Its eye opened again, veins pulsing red from deep beneath it. It let out another deafening psychic scream, beginning to push Troy back.

"Whine some more." Troy grit his teeth, slowly beginning to advance in the face of Giyga's mental assault. Giygas's eye flared again and let out a screech of its own as it fired a bright white laser that pierced into the ground and ripped upwards at Troy. Troy raised both keyblades and swung them down in front of him. Both attacks clashed and the beam gradually began to widen and grow in intensity as both fought for control of the attack, a translucent barrier growing around Troy's front in response.

A final rush of adrenaline shot through Troy and he felt strength surge through him again. Everything in his visage turned a sickly shade of blue and his grimace grew. "It's happening again... the Chronicle..." Troy pivoted his head up before thrusting it forward again, causing a visible wave of force to explode out from around him. Time slowed to a crawl once more and he forced all his concentration upon the beam - which had now been slowed to a degree such that the beam was now individual pulses of light. Troy felt his spirit rise again and he broke the barrier in front of him, slowly moving towards Giygas as he began slashing the individual bundles of energy out of the air with resulting miniature blasts of their own. Giygas let out a pained whine, beginning to shrivel in anticipation as Troy finally strode up to melee range.

"I got a present for you!!" Troy roared, casting both weapons off to the side in a whirlwind of steel. With one last burst of strength, Troy reeled back and hurled his Vast palm straight at the center of Giygas's eye.

_I'm afraid I can't let you do that._

Troy's hand froze to a halt. The rest of Troy began trembling wildly as the energy of of his assault was reabsorbed into his body. His surroundings continued to grow into a dull blue as his adrenaline emptied out. "What's-w-wha-ouuuggh-" Troy's head slumped forward, letting out a fountain of vomit as every muscle in his body went from full-tilt operation to paralysis in the span of seconds. "...kahhhhgggg..." Troy's head bucked wildly as he managed to raise it back to its regular position, slowly pivoting over to see a man advancing him in a heavy, hooded black raincoat. "...y-you... what are you doi-"

The figure stretched out its arms, revealing a pair of black leather gloves from its long sleeves. The man closed in on Troy, kneeling down to pick up the Chronicle as he marched onwards. "...Troy Kiemen... that's what they call you? You did good. Better than all the others. You actually got me a keyblade that I was capable of using... not only that, you found Ameile's keyblade of all things. I really do owe you one."

"Who are you?!" Troy hacked.

The black-coated silhouette swung the keyblade around weakly several times before turning its gaze back to Troy. Slowly it raised its free hand and lifted back the heavy collar of the overcoat. Underneath was a head of moppy blonde hair, that of a human teenager. Finally he lifted his head up and opened his dull blue eyes to lock onto Troy, giving an arrogant smirk as he did so.

"I think that's none of your concern... puppet."

* * *

Sirius's head snapped up. "No. That can't be. That's just a fairy tale! That can't be... Ederick himself?! That's flat out impossible... Troy can't be the Nobody of Ederick!! I've wasted too much time here. I have to do something, and something now."

"Okay, seriously, quit with the psychobabble, some of us gotta sleep out here." One of the retainers slumped against a nearby tree, visibly nodding off.

Sirius took a deep breath and concentrated. He slowly rose to his feet, beginning to walk to the border of the Vast sphere. "I swore I would not subject myself to the Vast again, nor would I put the stability of lesser-cultured worlds in jeopardy... but I must act for the greater good!" Sirius glared at the guard as he strode straight through the purple field - and promptly collapsed to the ground with a shriek.

"What are you doing?!" the guard yelled. "How can you just... ARGH, I should have figured he was just playing dumb, I shouldn'tve trusted the Princess to keep him locked down with that stupid light show... GUARDS!!" the soldier's body went completely silent as a thin green laser beam narrowly missed his head. Sirius let his glowing hand slump down as the rest of his body collapsed. Slowly stumbling to his feet, Sirius let out a scream as he planted his taloned feet into the ground. He dug into his scalp with both hands and bent backwards, continuing to let out high-pitched whines as the purple sludge dripped off his body.

"Aegegsfgggghhh!!" Sirius began to lose his rigidity, stumbling into a nearby hedge as the sludge continued to eat away at him. "N-no!! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!! YOU WILL NOT BE THE ONE JUDGING MY EXISTENCE!!" Sirius shook all over as he spotted the Vast congealing at his right arm. Attempting to completely shut off the nerves in the singular limb as he had many times before, he raised his other palm and sheared the arm completely off with another beam of green light. Sirius collapsed to the ground again, pushing himself backwards across the grass as he watched the purple symbiote completely disintegrate the lost appendage. Sirius glanced around the small hedge enclosure at the mess of blood that stained the entire section of grass. Sirius slowly stood up, feeling the pangs of his restarting nervous system as his mortal wound began to seal itself. "...this body is nearly worthless to me now... it will take too much time to locate another suitable combat body in the localized spirit well... the most I can do now is race to Ederick and seize him and Ameile's keyblade before... he can get away from us again!!"

Sirius leapt and hoisted himself over the walls of the hedge maze, in the process tramping over his widespread blood

* * *

"Puppet..."

"I'm going to cut to the chase," Ederick stabbed the Chronicle forward at Troy. "That Vast in your arm is going nowhere. Luck beyond luck, you're both a Nobody that's aware of its own place in the universe and a Nobody that is successfully repressing a Vast reset. That'll make explaining myself a lot easier. First, it's true that you're a Nobody. Nobodies, Heartless and Vast make up the holy trinity of physical existence, and for the purposes of this conversation, I'm going to tell you that the Nobody represents the mental processes and logical mannerisms of a Complete."

Troy's muscles contracted in pain. Looking around, he watched as the remainder of progressing time screeched to a halt and the blue aura covering everything in sight began to burn at his eyes. "A Complete... is the combination of all three? But they all repel or destroy each other, why are-"

"That's the pack mentality, eh? Every single one of those things is out there trying to find the other two that belong to it but they all keep slamming into each other in all the wrong combinations and annihilating each other. Three Stooges syndrome. Let's say, for both your future reference and literally, that a Heartless represents the carnal desires and senses of the physical form. If you keep trying to put your brain in the body of a rabbit, how the hell do you think you're going to react when you seal the deal? You have no idea how to operate this new physical form, so the mind is going to rebel and there's not a thing the body can do outside of the mind's instruction."

"Nobodies beat Heartless..." Troy's eyes went wide. "But... what does this have to do with me..."

"Here's a little revelation for you, 'Troy'," Ederick swung the keyblade back to his side. "You are a Nobody, but you aren't a hive mind. You are nothing more than the physical form of a Complete's thought patterns... the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

"What are you trying to say?!" Troy shouted back.

"Take a look," Ederick raised his arms to both sides. "at your Complete."

Troy felt nausea beginning to rise again. "...my... Complete?"

"Oh, I'm not actually a REAL Complete by any means," Ederick folded his arms. "I'm merely a tiny shred of sanity left in the mutated form of a Nobody you represent. And when you had that Vast injected into you... I prevented it from turning you into a mindless vegetable and overpowered it to harness for my own use. It activated your latent heritage... as the evolutionary relative of Ederick Argentai, the Master Keyper of NSX."

"...of NSX?"

"Do you know what the Vast does, Troy?" Ederick's grin grew more toothy and demented by the moment. "...the Vast is the physical force responsible for the creation of hearts. Millenia of research and scholarly pursuits by the greatest of galaxies-worth of scientists and philosophers sought that power, but I was the one to find it... lost in this God-forbidden galaxy, locked away for all time... but, it is nothing but a natural force set on autopilot... if some random Vast encounters a lowly Nobody such as yourself, lacking a heart, it will attempt to assimilate you and inject a new heart into the hollow shell you represent, destroying any ties you had to your previous Complete in the process."

"...and Vast beats Nobody..."

"The Vast just plays into the Heartless' hand though, if the Heartless really are nothing but empty physical shells with a hunger for hearts yet suffers no ill effects from the 'reset' so to speak..."

"Then they just siphon energy off them like crazy."

"Hey now, you're getting good at this. Starting to see what I mean?"

"I'm starting to see what you mean, I'm not seeing what relevance this has to this situation."

"Oh, it has everything to do with it," Ederick sighed. "Just seems that you need to be reminded that you're just a cog in the machine that is Ederick, even if you think you're performing some kind of miracle in saving this world or something."

"No. Why are you here." Troy gradually began to tense up, pain dripping away from him.

Ederick shrugged. "It just looked like you needed some help, that's all. So if you'll just get on your knees and submit, I'd be more than happy to take over for you for a bit."

"Take over for me, what are you talking ab-" Troy coughed up another mouthful of blood as all of a sudden it felt as if his torso had been torn in two. Troy's eyesight slowly folded inwards as all of a sudden he found himself looking at the back of his head, suddenly lashing away from his own body. "...urrghhh.. now what... AHHH!!"

Troy's body slowly climbed back to its feet, completely ignoring all the physical grievances upon it. A white wisp hovered nearby flitting around in the air in a panic. Troy rolled his arms about, cracking his shoulders. His eyes opened with a dull green glow behind them. "Ahhhh... that's better. I'll be giving this back eventually, but for now I'll take care of this little situation for you." Troy cast out his arm, causing the discarded Chronicle to fly through the air into his grasp. "...Ameile's keyblade... it's a pity I couldn't meet you face to face once more... for now however I'll take this blessing."

Auron lurched back to his feet, letting everything above his torso hang limply. "...the Chronicle is growing more powerful... how is Troy able to access its full power so easily..."

All the ambient noise drained out of the air as Troy glared at the hovering spirit in the air. "Because you, Troy, know Ameile by association. She was the creator of this Keyblade. And she was my greatest friend. That resonance... is what enables me to truly utilize this keyblade... not at 100 of its power of course, that is reserved for its true owner... but you've seen nothing of its maximum capabilities yet. Behold..."

Troy hunched down again as with a bright flash of light the room turned into nothing but a blue haze.

"Sword of the Timeless Eye, CHRONICLE!!"

A shockwave blasted out behind Troy as he flashed forward at near-unseen velocity. In the split second it took for him to approach Giygas once more, he had completely disappeared from sight. Auron froze in place as concussive blasts of air tore around him, and Troy appeared once more on the opposite side of the room, with his blade arm jutting out into the air. The blue glow vanished, and Giygas let out a pained scream as its entire form exploded into droplets of white sludge.

"T-Troy?!"

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!" Troy spun the handle of the blade on his palm, clasping it and slamming its head into the ground. The blue cloud rose up again and a shadow of himself leapt backwards as Giygas's particles closed back together. As the twin landed back where Troy had started, time lurched forward again and hundreds of shadows leapt into the air around the room, watching as the original shade rocketed back forward. Giygas was mutilated again with the same attack, and the shadow Troys intercepted each individual segment of Giygas as it flew into the air, slashing them to smaller and yet more unrecognizable bits. With the sound of groaning metal everything flew in reverse until Troy stood in front of Giygas yet again.

"Now Troy," Troy laughed. "Tell me what happens here."

Giygas simply vanished.

"...who am I kidding, you couldn't grasp what I'm about to tell you with a PhD in quantum physics anyways. I attacked Giygas. Just once though. After I realized he would reform I kept going back to points in history prior to that in 0.0014 second intervals and attacked him from a different angle. Of course, then I realized that he could reform from smaller denominations than that so I went back to each individual point in history that I had visited prior and sent myself out in every possible angle in this room such that I could intercept and further destroy any fragments of him that would be sent out by the explosion of hundreds of copies of myself slashing at him at different angles in the exact same point in space-time."

The white wisp suddenly was sucked back towards Troy, melting into the front of his shell. Troy blinked, looking at his hands and prodding himself as he realized that he had regained control. "...what?! Are you trying to say that the Chroncile is capable of-"

Ederick stood a short distance away with his arms folded. He scoffed to himself as he glanced away. "Time travel? Well, that's certainly an ugly way of saying it. You're experienced it though... did you not have any idea that that was what the power of the Chronicle was? Every time you've activated it, you..."

"Time dilated." Troy twitched. "...Bowser slowed down when he tried to kill me from above... so did Nightmare... and just now, when I jumped that gap, when I saved that woman..."

"All me. Heh... what were you thinking, that you had any inkling of power in yourself such that you could wield that keyblade? I don't think you were able to comprehend what you just witnessed."

"You should take care of Giygas then if you're so tough."

"Are you freakin' kidding me?! HAHAHAHAHAH!!" Troy reeled back as Ederick threw his head back and let out a hyena laugh. "Pay attention you brat! I destroyed Giygas! Outright! In a span of a blink! I don't think you followed the terminology of my explanation, so here it is, in the For Dummies version: through the repeated positioning of my self in the past space-time, I slashed Giygas into exactly 563,362 pieces in the span of 1.2 seconds. Yes, I was counting, I had to make copies that made copies of copies, remember."

Troy slowly began to back away from Ederick, feeling his arms begin to shake. "...yo...you... you c-couldn'tve..."

Ederick rolled his eyes. "I don't feel like explaining. I mean, your body was the one that did it, so I'll let your memory play it back for you." Ederick snapped his fingers.

Troy's face went white as the entire scene played at a legible speed in his updated recollection. He crumpled to his knees as Ederick casually strode by him with the Chronicle slung over his shoulder.

"There you have it. Chroncile, Sword of the Timeless Eye, is a keyblade that grants its user complete and utter control over short-range time. You know when you got told that this keyblade shouldn't fall into the wrong hands? THAT is why. Although, in this case, 'wrong hands' can be interpreted as 'hands that are not yours', since you are nothing but a pawn to me."

"...and what's the game that I'm your pawn in?" Troy asked weakly.

"I already said," Ederick tapped his foot impatiently. "This keyblade exists, therefore Ameile exists. I must find Ameile. Conveniently, it seems that you are a Nobody worth being used by this Covenant or whatever that idiot over there calls it. Since it seems that they have the means of getting off this stupid rock and out into the universe, it's a good thing you decided to say yes."

Troy's eyes shifted uncomfortably as he watched Ederick pace around him. "And what if I were to say no?"

Ederick stopped, chuckling. "...I don't think you get it. I might be bound to you..." he glanced up, giving a cold stare that made Troy's pulse crawl to a halt. "...but I have ways of making you wish that you'd never been born. If you hassle me enough that I have to wait for a more... suitable mutation of my Nobody form to occur, then I guess I have no choice but to do that, won't I?"

Troy looked away, letting darkness creep over his face as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "...well, what are you expecting me to say... everything leading up to this point as a novice Keyper has been some gong show... and now you're going to dump another miserable load of mysteries on me as soon as I begin to make any progress sorting this crap out. Can you answer at least one thing for me, just one."

Ederick glared at him distastefully.

"...if you're such a powerful Keyper, and I'm not being entirely sarcastic here..." Troy hesitated. "...there's a lot of Keypers on this world. We've fought off the Heartless and the Vast for a long time now. Do you think that this world would be able to fend for itself if we were to leave?"

Ederick scoffed to himself, continuing to stare a hole through Troy. Finally he heaved a sigh and looked back at Auron. "...I can sense great power from all corners of this globe. There are Keypers in every nook and cranny of this insignificant planet, but if you are asking whether or not this world can defend itself from whatever symbiote drabble that crashes into it, then I would say that these defenses are satisfactory."

"So I can head for other worlds with that comforting me." Troy let his head sulk. "That's all I wanted to know."

"You only head for the stars out of its convenience to me, you're my tool and nothing more. Delusions of grandeur will be dealt with by me personally. You know your objective. Now, go, go to your friends and head out there and find Ameile. And remember one thing... the power I hold over Chronicle is derived solely from my emotional connection to her. What I wield is just a fragment of its maximum ability, in her hands its power will increase yet again... no one else must be allowed to take it from our... your grasp."

"You're leaving me a-"

"Ungh..." Ederick suddenly collapsed to one knee. His physical form distorted rapidly, turning to static as he locked eyes with Troy once more. "...I've already pushed myself too hard. I haven't been able to entirely gain control of the Vast... I'm going to have to leave you for now. Don't think this changes things any, Troy... the whole is greater than the sum of its parts..."

Troy growled as he cast out his arm. "Wait! You..." Troy's shoulders again fell limp as he watched Ederick simply blink into thin air. All of a sudden everything around him lurched back into motion and he found himself standing in the middle of the arena at a furious Illidan and a semi-conscious Auron.

"Did you do it, Troy?!" Auron shouted. "Where is Giygas?"

Troy set the comment settle in before spinning around wildly. "Where is? Giyas?..." Troy felt his hide turn clammy as the series of events settled into his current awareness. He glanced away, making sure to hide his commentary from the two. "...if what Ederick said and did was what just actually occured, Giygas was completely eradicated in 1.2 seconds... to everyone else watching, it would've looked like Giygas just blinked out of existence..." Troy grit his teeth as another preemptive rush of wind hit him and he raised his blade up to block Illidan's. The impact sent Troy skidding across the grating. Troy suddenly tilted his heel back, wincing as he dug his ankle into the metal frame and let the whiplash suplex Illidan facefirst into the ground. Both attempted to entrench their other foot into the grating elsewhere and use it to spin their bodies around to meet facefirst, and soon both keyblades were pointed at their target's throats.

"I cannot fully comprehend what you have done..." Illidan hissed. "But I felt the power radiating... and I heard the scream of death. For you to kill and maim with that sort of efficiency... I am impressed."

"What..." Troy let out a hack as suddenly Illidan dropped his blade, slamming his pams into the side of Troy's head in a deathgrip. The black blindfold strangling Illidan's head suddenly burned away in a flash of green flame, and it continued to billow from what remained of his eyesockets. Illidan's jaw unhinged as he let out a piercing scream and the pillar of flame lanced out at Troy at point blank range. Both Troy and Illidan were hurled into the air as the ground underneath them exploded and landed apart from each other. Troy writhed on the ground, clawing at the burns on his face - he had dodged the brunt of the attack, but his vision grew faint as the air made his eyes sting.

Illidan rose back to his feet. "More interferences..."

Sirius limped out of the smoke. "...did I not say something about approaching this from a different angle?"

"You!..." Troy snarled. "Get outta our business!!"

"So ungrateful..." Sirius looked over his shoulder. "Even after I come to this world out of the goodness of my heart... teach you and your friends of the keyblades... and now save your life yet again... I'm not long for this body, but I have a few last words before I leave for the aether once more..."

Troy twitched as Sirius's voice entered his head. _As the reincarnated avatar of Ederick, you carry on a lineage that could very well stretch back to the creation of NSX itself. It is important that you survive, even if I cannot bend you to the will of my master. You hold the key to the future of not only this world, but many others... you must carry on to the stars, and search for, or at least determine the fate of the Ameile that the legend of Ederick makes mention of. With the last of this body's power I will get you to safety... but first, I've passed on my ultimate power to you. Hopefully you will never find the need to use it... but it marks the crumbling of the last barrier between you and true immortality. I bestwo upon you the Soulscreen._ Troy shook the cobwebs out of his head as Sirius's grip loosened. "...the Soulscreen?"

"There's no time to explain," Sirius mumbled. "You will learn in due time."

"You're never going to end up telling me what your NSX is trying to accomplish, are you."

"...I am only one of NSX by extension... for NSX comprises all of this reality. We work towards the sanctity of NSX by restricting the Nobodies, Heartless and Vast to their own domain... I am one of the Nepenthes. Be warned that your actions may run in direct opposition to their own goals... and not all of them will be as lenient in their enforcement as I."

"Saving us just to fulfill your own needs... I didn't expect much better out of you." Troy spat on the ground in front of him, emptying out the mixture of saliva, blood and mucus. "I'm going to take you up on this, considering that after having everything pumped into my head that just was, I REALLY need some fresh air."

Sirius looked over his shoulder, watching as Troy and Auron blinked into thin air. Letting his shoulders relax he turned his gaze back to the seething Illidan. "Such insolence. Did you honestly think I didn't anticipate anything of this sort occuring regardless of who I enlisted to carry out my commands? Anyways, this little tussle seems to have resolved itself so I'll just be putting you in a place where you can think about what you just made me do. Apparently I've used up most of my power in this form just escaping the grasp of this world's officials, so I'm afraid I can't grant you a more permanent absolution. For now, anyways. Just... begone."

"rrrAAUGHH!!" Illidan roared, quickly beginning to fade away as well. Sirius watched as the remaining wafts of green flame in the air died out.

Sirius let his raised arm sag again, slowly tilting his head up to the roof as one by one the lights in the room began to die out. Similarly, the soft glow behind his own eyes began to dissiapate. "Do not incur the ire of Ederick or Ameile... for many lost souls have seen their journeys end as such..." with a nearly inaudible groan, Sirius collapsed to his knees, slumping down facefirst into the floor as the last lights disabled themselves.

* * *

Auron sat crouched on one of the many painted cliff faces of Land's End, staring out into the endless crevices beyond. A sea of dust flowed along the wasteland floors, tending to suddenly lap up and threaten to sweep away anyone that got too close to look. Every limb of his creaked with pain, but with one protesting movement his shoulders slowly rode up and down again with an accompanying sigh. Troy laid spread-eagle in the dirt nearby, crippling exhaustion showing in his form as well.

"...well. That didn't go entirely as I'd anticipated." Auron mumbled.

"...I don't think anticipation is one of our strong points." Troy grumbled back.

Auron's eyes continued to roll as he watched the straggling vegetation flail in the wind. Troy watched uneasily, expecting him to tumble over the ridge at any moment. Finally with some effort Troy pushed himself up into a sitting position. "...well."

"Well?" Auron said flatly.

"Well... now what?" Troy groaned.

Auron glanced back over his shoulder at Troy, his spectacles seeming black as night. "What happened with Giygas was... unfortunate. I hope your other... friend there didn't have anything to do with the sudden disappearance of Giygas."

"I wish I knew." Troy lied.

Auron looked back ahead of him. "...well... it seems our problem has been solved for now. That Illidan was particularly hellbent on seizing your keyblade. Something in me wagers that he will not pose an issue to the other residents of this world."

"It's me he's after. I know that much."

"...anyways... about the Vast," Auron slowly rose back to his feet. "It seems that we've had some luck."

"We?" Troy watched drunkenly as Auron gradually strode by. "Who's we?"

"You, I, some of my associates..." Auron stared into the sky, a hand held above his brow. "While injecting the latent Vast into a primal Nobody was a convenient situation that should have presented relatively no complications... that prospect seems to have ended for the time being. On the other hand, however... an esteemed disciple of medical science within the Covenant has returned from a long mission and is currently resettling in our base of operations."

"What're you trying to say?"

"She may be able to isolate the Vast in ways even I don't know of. I'm afraid she doesn't take house calls, pardon the expression. Any contact with her will likely have to wait until your official induction into the Covenant."

Troy suddenly went into a cold sweat, images of Ederick's destruction and foreboding playing back in his mind. "...uh, yeah, about that... Auron, this is going to probably sound kinda funny to you, but about the Vast... can we put that on the back burner for now? I have a really bad feeling that trying too deal with it too fast is going to have drawbacks that I might not be prepared for... please, give me more time to think about this. Maybe it might present a tactical advantage neither you or I are aware of."

Auron stared back down at Troy, eventually shaking his head. "...if you wish. I will warn you, however... attempting to contain the Vast too long will have serious and eventually lethal consequences. If you're trying to understand more about it, however, I can see why."

Troy clambered back to his feet, jogging to keep up with Auron as he marched away to Troy's dune buggy that remained conveniently parked nearby. "...so, uh, what's the plan now? I mean, if I want to join this Covenant? Do I have to take a test or something? I hate tests. Well, long answer ones anyways. Or do I have to go beat up more Heartless or Vast or whatever random slime from outer space is sieging some random kingdom around here? C'mon, help me out here."

"I think you are adequately prepared to come with me," Auron said sternly. "But first, I think you should say your temporary goodbyes to your friends on homeland security..."

* * *

"WHAT?! WHATWHATWHATWHAT?!"

Troy winced as the hand clutching his scalp forced his face down into the polished floor of the castle meeting hall yet again. "Pfh... it's like I already told you... I gotta go with Auron for a bit and he-"

"You sat there with a straight face while Auron said he was going to just whisk you away to another world..." Peach trailed off into a hiss through grinding teeth. "and you just nodded like an idiot, and-"

"This is relevant to our situation." Troy mumbled.

"That's not the point! What matters here is that you aren't TAKING ME WITH YOU!!" Peach knelt down on the floor, sitting on Troy's shell as she raised and slammed his head against the ground again.

"Peach's dream, crushed." Selphie sat at the table poking at her upper lip with an index finger. She stared wistfully at the suppressed Troy, making sure to time her blinks to avoid having to watch the brutal impacts.

"She would use up her travel money in minutes and be back here crying at our doorstep." Wooster said flatly.

"I think I'd be worth it," Peach muttered. "I'm pretty sure by now this isn't all fun and games... if Troy's gonna be romping around the galaxy we're in deep trouble. We need a REAL diplomat, why couldn'tve it been me..." Peach let out a chirp as suddenly a thick, long finger started jabbing into the back of her throat. Slowly she looked over her shoulder and stared into the face of a crouching Auron.

"Please stop that." Auron sighed. Everyone watched Peach raise off of Troy and scurry behind the council table.

"If you're here to check up on us..." Mario rocked back and forth in one of the table seats. "...then I'll be delighted to say that you missed Sirius jumping ship on us again."

"We're aware. He managed to get away from us as well." Auron replied.

"UGH, did he go after Troy again?" Luigi grumbled. "I don't know what it is between you two, but Sirius's really seeming bent on making him his whipping boy."

"I can't say for sure what his intentions really are," Auron seated himself. "but he did manage to help us out of a situation that could have gotten bloody very quickly."

"We managed to find the other Keypers that've been trying to hunt me down," Troy quickly blurted. "...I... we managed to put a dent in their operations though, I'm sure that they won't be bothering us anymore."

"That's good to know..." Peach took her chair at the head of the table, leaning back swinging her shoes up onto it. "You wouldn't believe how crazy the Keyper registry has become here. The task force infrastructure in all three kingdoms is bursting at the seams. Dad's handling the red tape, hopefully we can integrate them a little more and screen all these recruits better. It helps that we can focus our efforts on the Heartless and Vast though."

"Uh, how many people DO we have?" Troy glanced at a neatly-stacked pile of binders in front of Peach.

Peach bit her lip. She plucked the blue portfolio off the top of the stack and lazily flipped through it. "...according to the last compilation, 1,403 keypers worldwide."

"Fascinating..." Auron let his chin rest on his folded hands. "That so many Keypers could be successfully organized and united to a common cause. My experience in leadership is... fairly limited. What kinds of scenarios have these Keypers encountered, what is the average tour of duty to this date, what about-"

"Hold up tiger, I'm not the statistician here." Peach rapidly flipped through the pages. "All I can tell you is that we haven't exactly run into anything on the scope of what Troy or you've encountered. We have the manpower sure, and the Koopa and Sarasaland kingdoms are as well-staffed as us so to speak, but they're all green as can be. I wouldn't call this a bulletproof world yet."

"You've taken significant strides though, and I commend you for that," Auron bowed his head. "As long as you are able to defend yourselves against offworld threats I'm sure you and your people will find all the answers you seek."

"Not soon enough." Peach glanced at Mario, Luigi and Selphie, all lined up opposite from Auron with weary looks on their faces.

"Welllllllllll," Troy drummed his wrists on the table. "You'll be just ecstatic to know that I hit up a deal with Auron here and you three'll be coming wi-"

"I never said that." Auron said flatly.

Troy spun around. "W-wait! You said, you said that they'd be leaving this world, that if I agreed to join the Covenant, they'd-"

"I never explicitly said they would come with us. I believe the exact phrase was, 'devote resources to'. It is perfectly possible for these people to leave this world any time they please. They just need to learn the practice of doing so."

"Well we're leaving, aren't we?" Troy snapped. "Why can't they just-"

"We are going off on an entirely different tangent, did I not make myself clear? This is going to be a voyage of discovery, moreso for you than me at the outset anyways, and where we are going to end up will be extremely dangerous to both of us. The others here are victims of cirumstance, and I understand entirely if they simply wish to go home."

Mario rubbed his head through his cap uneasily. "...well, when you put it that way..."

"Ehhhh..." Selphie glanced over to Peach, getting little besides a shrug in response.

"I won't keep you here against your will, even if you are a Keyper yourself." Auron fixed his eyes on Luigi. "Do not worry about keeping the others here safe, as you can tell there has been great progress in the defense of this world and I'm sure that it currently lies in more than capable hands. Now, listen closely... I do mean it in the most literal sense when I say that you have the tools to jump between worlds as you please. You may have noticed that the keyblades are capable of fully manipulating the Vast, as Peach can attest to. The defensive barrier surrounding Birabuto remains to this date simply through her will, and molds itself to allow entry and exit of other Nobodies. This is the same Vast that can enter and leave this world at will..."

"What are you trying to say?" Peach's shoulders tensed.

"...you are able to use the domesticated Vast itself as a vessel to enter space. I mean that in the sense, that you Keypers possess a control over this extraplanar matter that would allow you to construct, with enough practice, extremely complicated machinery. That's not what you are trained for however, nor do you need to do so to accomplish something as basic as ferrying yourself between worlds."

_There's only one way that a the Vast would just completely ignore a Nobody, given Ederick's description of both..._ Troy felt a chill run down his spine. _...and that's..._

Peach was already back on her feet, staring at Auron distastefully with a cocked head and a hand on her hip. "Are you saying I could just make a big hollow cube of Vast and fly around in it?"

"That wouldn't be the most comfortable means of transit, but yes, that is a very basic example of what I'm trying to say. And I don't believe the word you want to use is 'make'... that Vast has to come from somewhere."

"We'd have to find a big wad of dormant Vast..." Luigi looked over to the window. "...but where would we find enough to make something like a spaceship out of?..."

_Ugh, if I hadn't sent that tank of Vast up in smoke..._ Troy grimaced.

"That's up to you to determine. I'm sure the opportunities will present themselves."

Peach facepalmed. "There must have been an enormous amount of latent Vast in Birabuto for me to just suck that big shield out of nowhere... but I can't just go there and tear it down again, it's become the backbone of their anti-symbiote defense. We're in a jam here..."

"I suggest you revisit sites of earlier Heartless outbreaks. The presence of Vast is nearly always preemptive to its appearance."

_If only you knew..._ Troy's gaze swept through the half-dazed, half-motivated stares of everyone else in the room.

"Do you really have to leave that badly..." Selphie sighed.

"There are other worlds in similar situations as yours... some better off, some dangerously unstable. We always have to be on the watch for developing situations and chances to successfully intervene in them. Surely you don't wish upon others what could have torn this civilization apart." Auron slowly pushed himself back and stood to his feet. "...we will most likely be back for a visit in the future, but I can't put an exact date on when that might happen. Until then we will be hard at work trying to discover a more permanent solution to the problems of the Heartless and Vast. Are you ready, Troy?"

"...oh? Uhhh... sure?" Troy stared dully at Auron as the heavy doors of the dining room were pulled open by a pair of mushroom retainers. He shot another hesitant glance at the other residents of the table before jumping up onto his feet and jogging back up to Auron.

"Don't worry, I'm not asking you to shelve all mortal concerns," Auron folded his hands behind his back as Troy matched his pace. "eventually you will be able to return here as you please, as an extension of experiencing the kind of freedom of travel that Princess Toadstool and the others will soon have the boon of." Auron looked back forward as the residence hall of the castle came to a close and the even larger front doors of the bastion slowly creaked inwards. Light spilled on top of the two as they stepped outside and started to descend the stairs to the floor of the master hall. Auron slowed to a halt in the center of the massive chamber, overtop of a sun emblem on the floor that served as the only interruption to the black and white checkerboard pattern that covered the rest. "...Troy."

"..mm?"

Auron drew the Muramasa slowly out of thin air from the side of his waist. Troy stepped back as Auron raised the massive blade in front of him, pointing it outwards. Auron gradually drew a large circle in the air in front of him, stopping on occaision to retrace the path. Finally he slung the weapon back over his shoulders with a rustle of leather, licking his lips as he stared at the imaginary pattern in the air. With one swift movement Auron crouched backwards and forced his free palm forwards with a guttural yell, impacting something in the air with a shower of multi-colored sparks. Troy stumbled back, losing his footing and falling onto his behind as a circle of a glasslike texture exploded out in the other direction, its shards quickly fading into the light that drowned the room. A hole in the air, a roaring white abyss precisely 6 feet in diameter, began to kick up the air around the two.

"I hope you don't get nauseous easily."


	10. The Story So Far

A single lightbulb cast a beam down into what otherwise was a pitch black room. No attention was, or could have been for that matter, paid to the endless bookshelves in the back and foreground that made up the library of the grand palace of Toad Town. Instead, all that existed in the fake world lied within a small circle of light that dripped off one of the study tables and also lit up the chair that was tucked neatly under the surface. Troy sat in it with his arms draped out weakly over the table, staring at the dusty book in front of him with tired eyes.

He flipped it open, quickly hiding the XIII on the binding.

"...I thought I had all the answers in front of me. I couldn't be any more dead wrong." he lazily tossed the pages from right to left. "...well, I guess this is about as in-depth as you need to get if you want to just wipe out the Heartless and Vast en masse, but it's not much of a philosophical read."

Troy sulked forward, slamming his elbows down onto the table and folding his hands above his head. He stared at the text in front of him, it becoming more and more incoherent the more he strained his eyes to read it.

"...it's not so much that I realize that this isn't the whole story," Troy groaned. "but that I have no way of getting everything else I know out to the right people... even if I DID happen to completely trust someone to the level of trying to explain all this crap to them, there's no telling what Ederick would do if he didn't agree... and what degree of control he could probably exert over me... what am I going to do, I just can't keep all these experiences to me forev..."

Troy paused.

"...what am I SAYING, that's EXACTLY what I have to do; I have to sort this entire situation out before I can even start to think about breaking out of it. That's what's going to happen - I AM going to keep this to myself. Every last detail."

Troy slammed the book shut, turning it over and starting from the back cover. He flipped backwards through the pages, licking his lips as he finally came to the one he wanted. "...perfect."

A page was barren, with nothing besides III. VAST written at the top in bold type. The remaining 52 pages behind it were blank. Troy's hand snaked over, seizing a pencil that lied beside the book, and lead began stabbing at the empty pages with murderous intent.

* * *

My name is Troy Kiemen, and this is a story I'd like to refer to simply as 'NSX'. NSX is something mysterious and misunderstood, and I think I have the means to finish what Organization XIII started - not just figuring out what the Vast is; it turns out that was the easy part. Organization XIII didn't just mean to make encyclopedia entries on the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast, they wanted to figure out each one's placement in the world and how they interacted with each other to make up everything we know. As someone who's caught up in the middle of all three I think I'm entitled to talk here. I'm not going to go into details about NSX itself because it's still something not perfectly clear to me.

I was like any other Koopa at the time, fed up with the limitations of tribal living and was therefore more than happy to work on the construction of Last Chance Ramparts, a city-state formed and ruled by the less-than-forgiving Bowser. I did my bare minimum of time to became a Lance Corporal and served as a standing member of the Koopa Troop... well, where I was forced to, anyways... and was on my way to a steady paycheck, a bachelor bungalow and all the pork rinds and Koopa Cola I could ever want, even if others thought jack of me and my ambitions or lack thereof. Well anyways, it turns out that I was part of a brigade that was scheduled to be on a patrol of Dark Land to the waypoint closest to the nearby Mushroom Kingdom, but instead I figured I'd sneak out and join the guys on leave and enter the Dark Land Kart tourney. Besides being a terrible career decision, I ended up getting hunted down by the Koopa elite themselves and got thrown in prison. Not just any little brig no, but actual PRISON. When Bowser himself escorted me to his own private lair, I figured I would be leaving with a few fewer limbs.

Nope, turns out I was comitting high treason by supposedly escaping to the Mushroom Kingdom to alert them of the coming INVASION that he was sending said Koopa brigades out on. Here's where things get fuzzy, obviously - the entire compound had been covertly infested with a Heartless-Vast symbiote that had infected Bowser directly and caused him to go outright insane, as well as become even more megalomanic than usual which is NEVER a good combination. I was thrown back in the deepest, darkest cell of the fort to rot while he met up with his cronies to carry out his slaughter. Exactly what implications any of that terminology would have on me, well, I wouldn't know that for a while, but eventually it would get very, very ugly.

While I was down in that cell, I got a giant gash on my hand from some refuse glass. While I hadn't anticipated or even realized it at the time, I had managed to infect myself with pure Vast in the process. Even if I DID realize anything funky going on however any rumination over it got interrupted by this big bird-man thing suddenly blowing up the fort and whisking me away into the catacombs leading out of the castle. Only after a while did him or I realize that he didn't even know his own name. Eventually we... or he, the details are kind of fuzzy... decided on the name Sirius.

He claimed that he'd saved me from the wreckage because I carried an innate power, something that'd managed to protect me from going crazy like many of the other troops had when this crap fell from orbit and snuck in to our daily lives. He guided me to a lower level of the tunnels where I'd find my power and eventual worst nightmare all in one - the Chronicle keyblade. Effortlessly shattering the protective coating of the weapon with my sheer CONFUSION over what was happening that night, I took the keyblade for my own. We carried on to the Toad Town sewers and successfully intercepted Bowser's forces at the gates of the city, where the Heartless was finally beginning to take its true form. With the power of the keyblade they were simply cut down where they stood and it was just me face to face with Bowser - who again, against all odds, got beaten into a pulp by my Chronicle.

The Chronicle is an anolomy - as I'd figure out later, whoever controls the Chronicle gains short-range control over local space-time. With it I've teleported, slowed time to a crawl, and generally gained pretty rad artificial reflexes and resistance to damage entirely. As I'd learn eventually though, I'd only just tapped into a fraction of its power, and it was capable of much more destructive purpose - and that it was my task to keep it out of the hands of anyone that could put it to evil use.

This foray into the Mushroom Kingdom brought some unexpected surprises - one, that people were randomly plunking down into the territory of the Kingdom from other worlds at a startling rate, two, that their heir to the throne Princess Toadstool was strangely cool with all this, and three, for the most part all our visitors were trying to kill me, with some notable exceptions. Selphie the daisy-dressed schoolgirl, as well as the polar-opposite Mario brothers, were both allied with the princess with the promise that the Kingdom would do whatever was in its power to help them find their way home. The good news, they just happened to stumble across the two people that had the best idea what the hell was going on here, me and Sirius. The bad news, Sirius was a master of subject-dodging and expressed no interest in aiding them but instead made every attempt to let the Mushroom Kingdom know that the Vast was this evil entity that needed to be contained via the discovery of new keyblades. For the most part, the opportunity to release that notion on a now-paranoid population in the midst of an unexplained alien invasion was beneficial to Sirius's cause.

There was one other late arrival that threw a wrench into things, though. Well, technically two. On one of the keyblade/Keyper scouting missions that ran concurrent with the one that brought us Selphie, I got attacked by, and immediately saved by, two people from what would be later known as the Covenant - Siegfried, or Nightmare as he calls himself, and Auron. Auron effectively filled the gap in dependability that Sirius was beginning to leave in his disregard for the social state of affairs in the Mushroom Kingdom following all this crap. Working behind the scenes, Auron had already been secretly guiding people in the other nations to keyblades of their own, most notably Bowser himself. In addition, Auron presented me with texts created by the ancient Organization XIII, an occult group that had once tried to dissect the relationships between the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast to interpret and distribute amongst the population. Information on the latter was sparse for suspicious reasons, but the major point of interest here was that by the physiological descriptions provided... this entire world was made up of highly-evolved Nobodies. However, I wouldn't understand the whole importance of this until much later.

As the Keyper operation began to grow increasingly autonomous Sirius felt his authority threatened. Eventually Princess Toadstool and the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom governing body had him arrested on the spot under the assumption that Sirius was withholding information regarding the Heartless and Vast to preserve his seat of power. Toadstool, or Peach as she calls herself, was able to easily suppress Sirius using Vast controlled by a keyblade of her own, where he remained unrepentant. Mobilization of the Keypers remained relatively on schedule, indirectly guided by Auron and managed by governing bodies of the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms, and the Sarasaland Emirates.

Of course, being on schedule implies that I had no input into the matter entirely, which was the case. You see, while I was TRYING to act as a hastily-promoted emissary of the Koopa Troop in the Mushroom Kingdom's Keyper force, a shady group of people was popping up at every possible opportunity to either try to beat the Chronicle off me or goad me out into the open with attacks on Koopa infrastructure, most prominently an attack on the Koopahari sludge extraction facilities. With great help from Auron, some from my friends, and virtually none from Sirius, I managed to beat them off at every turn - the chaotic, egotistic Dr. Wily, the sly, suave yet still dominantly dim-witted Valentina, the scheming mastermind Heihachi, the slightly less than legible Fawful, and the nightmarish tag-team of Pokey and Giygas.

The latter presents a bit of concern. It turns out that this Giygas under the control of Pokey is what Auron referred to as a 'primal Nobody', a being that retains none of the sentience the rest of us did, but also presented a huge danger in the fact that the vibes it gave off could cause any Nobody's mind to turn to putty and return it to its natural symbiotic hunting patterns. This is something that nearly happened to me... and it was not pretty by any means of the word. With each victory we got closer and closer to eliminating all speed bumps in the Keyper organization plot, and we could turn our industrious minds to fully comprehending the food chain of symbiotes outlined by Organization XIII's work - and possibly figuring out where the Vast lied in it all. When Auron finally cornered me and informed me exactly what the long-effects of my earlier Vast contamination had in store for me, however, events quickly took a turn for the worse.

It turns out that the Vast I sucked in were gradually warping my Nobody complexion and drastically altering my own thought patterns. The more I thought about it, pun intended, the more it made sense - over an incredibly short time I'd developed a concrete grasp on the Chronicle's powers with virtually no training, and my personality had taken a complete 180 from when I was still working at Last Chance Ramparts. My logic and computational skills had shot through the roof, my overall strength had multiplied, and I was taking every possible leadership role within the Keyper construct and fighting with an unstoppable fervor when a couple months ago I couldn't be bothered to take the garbage out of my military dorm or manage to do more than 5 pushups in one go. I'd attributed this to freak luck in my path of mutation, but Auron made it clear that he hadn't witnessed anything like this before in Vast contamination cases, whereas all that he'd seen was a stagnation of the thought process in the afflicted Nobody followed by a lethal relapse in mental activity that lead to an instant, completely irreversible coma. Auron suggested that the Vast be removed just in case, and he already had a plan set up to do so.

It was blatantly obvious. The Vast was exhibiting parasitic behavior in me, so the general idea was to offer a more pure Nobody to it in the hopes that it would jump ship for a comfier home. This pure Nobody would be Giygas. This whole operation, inconveniently enough, would rely on a precision strike into the headquarters of these people. With some help with the expedition forces of the Koopa Troop, we were able to locate their grotto, which was a cave that had traditionally been off-limits to the Koopa tribes due to the belief that the legendary beast Magmagore made its nest there. What we found instead behind the steel doors though, was instead a high-tech bunker that had been implanted before the very evolution of the Koopa race - a supply depot for Sirius's ilk. Fighting our way deep into the fortifications, we managed to beat all of the bandits yet again, but I would have never been prepared for what lied between me and Giygas at the very end.

For starters, the final member of the posse, Illidan Stormrage, had been relaying my whereabouts to the rest of the gang via a psychic link from Sirius under the promise that the Chronicle would eventually be returned to him. However, Illidan was ready to jump ship and use all the information he'd gathered to seize the Chronicle for himself. Using Giygas to force another repression into my primal Nobody form, I pushed forward and tried to implant the Vast into Giygas as the Chronicle inexplicably multiplied in power. As I readied the deathblow however, another plot twist ended up crippling me.

A weakened fragment of Ederick Argentai, the true form brought about through the unification of my symbiotic forms had been lying dormant in me, managed to burst out and take control of me. As he would abruptly explain, he as my Complete was so completely unwilling to die in the event that split him into his symbiotic forms that his Nobody managed to retain slivers of the other two even through countless ages of environmental degredation and evolution on part of the Nobody. The current iteration of that Nobody was me. As he began to explain in detail what exactly the passages in the tomes of Organization XIII meant, and the implications that had for him and I, his reasons for restraining himself in the past and suddenly bursting out into the open here became clear.

The Heartless, Nobodies and Vast all have physical forms, but it turns out those physical forms merely exist to explain their relations in a disturbingly convenient manner: the Heartless represent the carnal desires and senses of the body, and Nobodies show the mental processes and logical mannerisms, whereas the Vast is the physical entity solely responsible for the creation of hearts... what exactly the possession of a heart entails is beyond me, but it's worth noting that the Organization in its plans had completely put unification with their respective Heartless on the back burner while they pursued their heart. This is probably what lead to their haphazard encounter with the Vast... regardless, it lead to the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast duking it out.

This flew in the face of everything that Organization XIII had said earlier about each of them seeking to align with their original accompanying symbiote and return to Completeness, but as Ederick explained we were in a space that was rife with all three and they were all in perpetual conflict as they kept flying into their sister symbiotes that DIDN'T correspond to their factory number so to speak, and they all ended up annihiliating each other in a battle of self-preservence to this day.

The Nobody's potential to retain their past being, along with possessing at least some sense of rational thought allows it to combat the Heartless by accessing the keyblades.

The Heartless, mindless in their pursuit of hearts to gain, gains no negative effect from latching onto a Vast and continually siphoning energy out of it.

This is the opposite of what happens when a Nobody comes into contact with a Vast. The Vast, biologically engineered to administer new hearts to those that lack it, inject a blank one and end up completely overwriting everything that Nobody can recall of its earlier life, turning it into a mindless vegetable.

It turns out that when I'd infected myself with that Vast in the dungeon of the Ramparts, Ederick had been jarred awake and since then had been involved in a battle for survival with the Vast. Fully awake and able to harness the Vast for his own purposes, he eventually managed to overpower the mutations that had occured to the Nobody since his slumber (in other words, me) and return himself to temporary, incomplete consciousness. Realizing that the loss of the Vast would mean the loss of the buzzer keeping him awake, so to speak, he kicked out the jams and fired up the true power of the Chronicle to defeat the threat to it - Giygas.

Ederick explained his rising spirit - the keyblade I had was actually the lost keyblade of an incredibly powerful Keyper by the name of Ameile, who he had strong relations with. This is what empowered him to actually push the time-shifting powers of the Chronicle to levels beyond any of us had actually witnessed. As he utterly annihilated Giygas, he left me with the cryptic instructions for me to head to the stars and seek out this Ameile, reminding me that while he was weakened he could still make my life a living hell.

Considering that Auron had already offered an invitation to the Covenant, a job that would likely involve lots of travel on the intergalactic interstate anyways, I didn't have much of a choice but to comply. Although I'd managed to get answers to a lot of questions that I had regarding the nature of the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast, I'd received ten times as many questions in response.

Here's where we lie now. With the defense of this world solidifying and gaining total resistance to the swarming, small scale attacks made by both the Heartless and Vast, we've begun to turn our attention to gaining greater understanding of the external forces acting on the world, and how to subvert and bend them to our own will. We've managed to create an incredible bond between the kingdoms that had mere months ago were either in the beginning stages of development or trying to antagonize one another.

This is only the beginning of things to come, though. We would never be free from these invasions until we found our place in the universe and unraveled the mystery of NSX - Ederick, as well as Sirius according to witness accounts of his ramblings, made mention of the 'lost galaxy' that we all lived in. Sirius on the other hand made reference near the end of our contact as something that all of us were part of... that it was nothing but reality... and it was something that he had to preserve the sanctity of. In addition, he was the only one to actually comprehend that Ederick was a part of me... or that I was a part of Ederick. He had the nerve to suddenly turn his entire intent to terminate me around, saying that the preservation of Ederick and his ultimate search for Ameile had some kind of bearing for the future of NSX. Sirius was one of the people determined to set that course of fate straight - he was one of what he referred to as the Nepenthes.

NSX is a place. It might very well be where we all reside right now. Who knows? I sure as hell don't, that's what I'm riding off into the wild blue yonder with Auron with to find out.

Have we really figured out the holy symbiote trinity? Something about Organization XIII not getting it for an indeterminate period of time and no one actually finishing what they started afterwards let alone ATTEMPTING to for all I know makes me a little uneasy... what would cause the Heartless and Vast to suddenly rain down on us like candy when there's no actual instance of anything remotely related happening in recorded history?

What kinds of new and amazing pains are Selphie, Mario and Luigi going to soak up in their attempts to get home? Is Peach really the diplomatic superhero she insists she is? I wonder if she or the others will actually manage to get off this rock...

Where the hell IS Auron taking me, anyways? I hope Nightmare doesn't feel like assassinating me again...

Have we really seen the last of Sirius? What is all this Soulscreen business that he's dropping on my shoulders? Gimme a break here, I already have galactic symbiote defense to tend to here... to that extent, it's pretty much a given that these Nepenthes are going to be hunting me down sooner or later, and on that note... what role do Ederick and Ameile play in all of this? In all of NSX, I mean? Why is everyone so interested in their heritage, besides Ameile's keyblade being able to crash the space-time continuum at its full power for all I know?

These are all things I'll learn in due time... some results redeeming, and others crippling. Either way... this tale was only beginning to unravel, and what lied ahead would be a grueling test for all of us, including myself. That desire I so boldly shouted out to no one in particular, that I wanted to 'evolve'... that resolve would be pushed to its absolute limits.

If the Vast and Ederick convinced me that I was turning into a different person altogether... that would be the understatement of a lifetime.


	11. Take on the Worlds

The great white hole in space had managed to turn into a blazing white light that surrounded Troy and Auron. Auron casually glanced around as Troy quickly shielded his eyes - for a moment, Troy had completely lost all sense of time and exactly what frame of such he'd actually entered the big nothing. Regardless of how long Troy had actually been standing there, he shivered as a frigid air quickly siphoned heat out of his body.

"...where are we." Troy finally spat.

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?" Auron said with a chuckle.

"Laugh it up old man," Troy's shuddering grew more obvious by the second. "You're the warm-blood here, not me. What are we doing?"

Auron froze for a moment, looking over to Troy. "...are you alright? You look cold."

"Ugh," Troy wrapped his arms around his shell, not doing the body underneath much good. "What kind of living conditions are these anyways, do you actually FIND this comfortable?"

"Would you like it a little warmer?"

"Will you QUIT looking at me like that? Of course I'd like it warm... er." Troy trailed off as suddenly his body temperature rose back to a cozy level. Troy stared at his hands in disbelief, spinning around frantically again to see what had caused the temperate climate. The white void still withheld any answers.

"If you're done, we should probably get inside."

"Get inside wh... okay, you're seriously freaking me out here. Can you PLEASE tell me what's going on?"

"We're going to the Covenant headquarters, obviously. Right now though I'm just going to subject myself to your train of thought. When I say, we're going to the Covenant headquarters, this obviously wasn't what you had in mind. May I ask what you WERE thinking of?"

"Something a bit more headquarter-y than a gaping hole in space."

"Did you ever have an imagination to speak of?"

"Yes. Then the Vast ate my brain. Can we get on with it?"

"Sure, let's go."

Auron resumed his walk. Troy slid behind him, staring a hole through the rough red robes that tauntingly swayed back and forth.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Troy mumbled.

"Nope." Auron said flatly.

"Right, that was a stupid question." Troy glanced over his shoulder. "Dare I ask how we DO figure out where we're going?"

"Well," Auron continued. "You might consider this a whole lot of nothing, but then again if you were lost anywhere in a place you'd never seen previously you would interpret everything around you as nothing that you can actually make sense of. So if you wanted to regain your bearings, what would you do?"

"Look for a landmark."

"That sounds like a good idea. You'd want to look for a landmark representing the Covenant base then."

Troy slouched. "...saying it's a landmark would imply that I KNOW WHAT REPRESENTS THE COVENANT BASE."

"well, let's examine this in a more broad context then. If you wanted to enter a friendly compound where would you go?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"Surprisingly, no."

"Then I'd go straight to the front do..." Troy's face plowed straight into a cold metal object with a painful, low-pitched *dong*, sending him to the ground clutching his snout. "...UNNGHFF-" Troy looked up, trailing off as he saw what he had collided with. Sitting in front of him, between him and Auron, was a simple grey iron door. Auron walked around to the front of it, twisting the simple handle downwards. With a loud click the flimsy door swung inside. Inside was a dimly-lit metal hallway with heating pipes running along its roof. Auron heaved a sigh, turning to kneel down to Troy and offer him a hand.

"Now was that so hard?" Auron whispered aimlessly.

* * *

**NSx: cHApTEr 10**

**305hlkfretsdfcbnm3klhp **

**tAkE ON ThE woRlD(s)**

* * *

"Well," Auron rolled his shoulders, causing his robes to shift in a breeze that seemed to manifest out of nowhere. "I'm pleased to say that you've passed the first test of induction. I'm glad to see you have an open mind that's open to different forms of interpretation. Do you happen to realize how you managed to find the entrance to this hallway?" Auron tilted his head at Troy, beckoning him to follow down the brightly-lit yet lifeless corridor.

"You asked me what I'd do to get in... and... it looks like I did it." Troy trailed off, shifting his attention to the endless sets of doors that sat across from each other in the hallway. Only upon questioning the accommodations in his head did he realize that no end to the hallway could actually be seen.

"Willpower. That's a major asset in this field of exploration." Auron lifted up his hand, weakly flicking one finger forward. Troy blinked, and upon opening his eyes stumbled to a halt again. The end of the passage sat in front of the two; another simple door of the exact same construct of the others down to the pattern of blemishes near the turn-handle. "It's harder to pursue something without a latent urge to succeed, than it is to not have any lead whatsoever but a burning desire to realize its true scope. Comprehending the nature of this reality draws many parallels to the pursuit of knowledge on any front."

"So where did I happen to subconsciously whisk myself away to?"

"This is the prison dimension of Shambhala. Myself, I was like your friends in an earlier time... part of an endangered species, made up of people who both possessed the traits necessary to harness the powers of the keyblades and sought some resemblence of domestic order in this cosmic war at the same time. Fewer still were those that truly stood up to the insurmountable questions regarding their own identities in relation to these invaders. We banded together under common leadership, utilizing the Vast in the ways that Peach and the others will soon come to know, and crossed over to other worlds to gather and spread knowledge in return regarding the Heartless, Nobodies and Vast. You happen to be the latest to join our ranks."

"Well you can't be the first Keyper, that I already know."

"Of course not. But I was guided here all the same... by some forces more material than others."

Troy's stare remained fixed on the door handle. "So this Shambhala, what's it all about..."

"As you've obviously noted, the fabric of reality in Shambhala possesses an acute weakness to pure will. In layman's terms, its own physical construct can be entirely controlled through thought. I've given control over the exterior of our headquarters to you, and everything that you and I have witnessed is your perception of our installation. Obviously, you had no idea of what exactly it was going to be, and the building blocks of your personal entrance began to take shape as your determination to pierce your way inside settled."

"...that doesn't even make sense," Troy glanced away again. "What happens when any of YOU try to get inside then?"

"Well, see, that's the thing." Auron remained still. "There IS no single discernable physical entrance into our region of shambhala. We all fought our way in, so to speak, just as you just have. This experience in particular just serves as a prologue to the creation of your own private domain within Shambhala that happens to be linked to ours."

"...private domain?"

Auron slowly pivoted around, leaning his back on the door. "...Shambhala is not a natural occurrence. There are limits to the modifications that you are able to make to Shambhala, most of which are unexplainable by natural phenomeona and most likely held back by outside forces that still haven't discovered. There's a possibility that this patch of space-time was created and maintained by intelligent life that predates anything we've encountered."

"Go on." Troy mumbled.

"Well, with that said you obviously can't think anything into existence that COMPLETELY flies in the face of the physical laws of the universe or otherwise pushes those limits. That aside however there are a great number of paradoxes that affect our manipulation - although we can force it to create any physical dimensions that we please, all our efforts in Shambhala have been unable to create a space larger than 29345 cubic meters. We can synthesize machinery that we have seen and used while having absolutely no education as towards its construction yet not be able to create weaponry of any kind. All physical states of matter are under our command yet we are unable to create solids with a density or strength of molecular connectivity greater than that of industrial-grade steel. I could go on for days you see."

Troy strode towards Auron with a baseball bat in one hand. With one mighty swing Troy brought it down over top of Auron's head - losing his balance as he suddenly found his hand empty. "...wow, they've REALLY got every loophole covered."

Auron raised an eyebrow as he stood back on his feet, turning to plant his hand firmly on the final door's handle. "Now, if you'll beg my pardon, you should see what has been carved out of Shambhala thus far." Troy jogged forward as the handle twisted down with a loud click, and the hallway gave way. Auron lead the two out of the dank hallway and into what looked like an enormous hotel lobby, with jade-green ceramic tile flooring and towering walls of polished white metal. Pillars of black marble dotted the sides of the corridor, interrupting lines of fine leather couches and chairs. More doors lined the sides of the chamber, and at the far end an enormous plate glass window looked out into deep space.

Troy ground his teeth. "You just said th..."

"I know I did. And this is what I mean by anolomies," Auron began to walk forward, Troy jerking along behind him. "this chamber has actually been here since we first entered, and no one is able to manifest the powers of Shambhala within it. At the same time though it has been absorbing random thoughts from our subconsci and decorating itself as necessary. From what we've been able to surmise this is a commons of some sort. This space was already intended for habitation. By whom though, that's something we try not to think too hard about."

"And where do you go from here?"

"The antechambers connected to this room lead into the domains of the Covenant members. Those are the constrained spaces I just told you about. Each has been linked to its first inhabitant and visitors are not able to manipulate them without consent from their owners. More security measures we figure. That doesn't stop us, however, from creating more subchambers leading from this room, but if anyone tries to link themselves to a second room their first resets."

"You're telling me all this why?"

"Because soon you'll have one of these rooms to harness for your own purposes and to experiment with, obviously."

Troy cocked his head. "...and you're just fine with me playing Simon Says with the space-time continuum?"

"Haven't you been doing that already?"

"Well yeah, but-"

"I think that's all you need to know about this space for now, it's time that we moved on to the actual structure of the Covenant."

"The Covenant itself?..." Troy watched as Auron began to wander away. Auron stopped, slowly pressing an index finger and thumb against his temples. Troy watched with a blank stare as Auron hummed to himself, twitching as he returned to his stoic stance.

"The Red Mage, White Mage, Monk and Dark Knight are currently inside Shambhala. I will summon them here. Please, have a seat."

"The... what?... I'm just going to shut up this time and-" Troy turned to head toward the nearest couch, but nearly found himself nearly tripping over an endtable that sat immediately behind him. On it sat a pair of plates, one made up of various sliced meats and cheeses and the other with an enormous pile of chocolate chip cookies. "...oh what the hell is this supposed to be now."

"Something to break the ice with I'd assume," Auron glanced around as several of the doors around them began to click and shake. "The White Mage never misses an opportunity to show off her homestyle cooking."

One by one humanoid figures strode into the room from their respective openings, navigating to the center of the room where Auron and Troy stood and seating themselves accordingly. Troy looked them up and down, trying his hardest to avoid eye contact. He did a double take once he had realized that Auron himself had sat behind Troy, causing him to stumble back and fall onto the sofa next to Auron. "...wait... four people?"

"The Covenant is not an army," Auron mumbled. "It is an organization. This is not the entire ensemble; many of us are often out on missions or otherwise out on leave. We do have home worlds after all... well, most of us anyways." Auron planted his hands firmly into the cushioning, pushing himself to his feet. "...alright. I'd like to announce that the world we have identified as Plit is now relatively safe from Heartless and Vast incursions. This was not entirely my doing however. The organization that has been beating us to these contaminated worlds, and withholding information regarding said Heartless and Vast from them while arming them with the keyblades, has identified itself as the Nepenthes."

"Wait, what?" Troy blurted. "Exactly how many times has this happened before?"

"Not now," Auron shot back. "...anyways, it turns out one of their agents, referring to himself as Sirius, managed to supply our friend Troy Kiemen with an incredibly powerful keyblade which he has developed potent skill with. With some effort Troy was able to prevent a Heartless-Vast hybrid symbiote from driving a developing nation into open war with the most powerful monarchy of the region. Troy temporarily cooperated with Sirius to create a system with the world governments with which to identify and supply latent Keypers on Plit, but it seems that Sirius had overstayed his welcome and soon found himself losing trust with the local authorities. From here I was able to step in and pick up the slack, resuming development of the world's defenses against Heartless/Vast contamination while at the same time administering Organization knowledge to the general public as per protocol A30B. My return was hindered by repeated attempts of a Nepenthe-grounded organization of off-world Nobodies to steal away the Chronicle keyblade from Troy, during which I scouted him as a potential candidate for Covenant membership. Needless to say I was extremely pleased with his performance both in combat and as a diplomat between the various kingdoms of the world concerning matters of the symbiote contamination."

Troy slouched forward with his head resting on a palm.

"It is for these reasons and my own personal reccommendation that Troy be instituted as the Warrior paragon."

"The who and what?" Troy jerked back to an upright position.

"In the process, though, I would like all of you to introduce yourselves and gradually relate your experiences with the Covenant to him, such that he is able to process his purpose for being here and his responsibilities in the future. Allow me to start. I fir... Troy, stop it."

Troy sat with the plate of cookies on his lap as he systematically demolished them. He wiped crumbs off his mouth, spewing out more as he spoke. "...ofh, that'sf fhine, go aheafd."

"As Troy already knows, my name is simply Auron. I am the Covenant's Samurai paragon and in charge of off-world preemptive security injection and counseling, and assist with membership maintenance and recruitment. I am trained in negotiation and diplomacy, but moreso, the arts of the great katana which my keyblade, the Muramasa, takes the form of."

Troy and Auron's gazes shifted across the gap between them and the other veteran Covenant. A young woman on the end stood up and stepped forward, barely five and a half feet, dragging a bright burgundy ponytail behind her that nearly touched the ground. Her eyes shared the same color, but both ultimately clashed with the dull-blue snug-fitting leather jerkin and dark khaki shorts.

"Hi!" she bowed her head. "My name's Monica Raybrandt. I'm the Covenant's Red Mage paragon. I don't know what to say beyond that I'm another diplomacy buff, besides that it's a lot more exciting for me to gloat instead that I probably know your keyblade better than you do and I can help you maintain it and keep it in tip-top shape. My weapon of choice is the longblade, with my Daedalus keyblade shifts into, but I think I'm pretty handy with general purpose magic myself."

Troy frowned as everyone's stares shifted to a slightly-annoyed and shirtless Nightmare, nearly fully collapsed in the sofa. His arms lied limply over the top of the back cushions, his heavily-armored greaves sticking out far into the aisle and crossing at the ankles. Nightmare scoffed as he and Monica exchanged annoyed stares, and emitted little more than a grunt when Troy's eyes crossed his. Troy's inflicted Nobody-wounds seemed to ail him little anymore.

"Siegfried, are you just going to-" Monica snarled.

"Oh, it's okay..." Troy said weakly. "We've... met."

"Where are the oth... oh." Auron's gaze shifted to the nearest sofa on Monica and Nightmare's side, seperated from the other by one of the room's gigantic pillars. "What are you two doing over there?"

"If Sieg didn't have as nearly a fat ass as he does, we might have been able to have a face-to-face discussion." a gravelly voice came from a fiery-red rodent-like humanoid, his stare drilling a hole into Troy even harder than Nightmare's. He sat in a similarly-relaxed manner, folding his arms and crossing his legs. The heels of a pair of buttoned green-yellow sneakers bobbed with dull clicks against the lobby floor, and a pair of spike-like growths shifted along top of the knuckle areas of his flexing fingers, concealed in single-unit white gloves. Behind his head was an uniform strip of dreadlocks.

Troy moved forward as the veteran extended an arm out to him, stumbling again to a stop as he realized his target was now standing immediately in front of him. He exchanged a sheepish handshake, leaving his thumb limp in an awkward attempt to avoid gouging it on the bony spikes on the topside of the receiving hand.

"Your chakra's pretty good. I don't think we'll have any issues."

"Whuh?" Troy huffed.

"Knuckles the echidna, Monk paragon. You're probably at the point where you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag without your keyblade, but we've all been there. I can help. I wield the Sphairai... when I remember to, anyways."

"We make him get that part over with, typically he doesn't know what to say," Monica sighed. "Usually he'll just start punching things instead. Or take you to his room so you can watch him sit cross-legged in a coma."

"I'm pretty sure the term is meditating." Knuckles suddenly backed off again, glaring a hole through Monica as he slumped back down onto the sofa.

Troy stared blankly into the air as more grumbling between the Covenant seniors carried on in the background. Slowly he turned his gaze to the far end of Knuckles' sofa, where the last present member waited. A girl sat with her stubby legs barely reaching over the edge of the sofa cushion, clothed in white and red pantaloons that covered all but the tips of her boots. She was wrapped up in a similiarly-styled doublet, pearly white with inward-pointing red triangles embroidered around its edges. A simple beige cord tied the jacket together in the front. Her head was disproportionately large, making up a large portion of her 3-and-a-half feet. Her skin was darker than the others, broken up by a black button nose, bright red eyes and fiery red hair that was tied into a short ponytail at the back.

"Is this?..." Troy pointed at her.

"Her attire does make guessing a little easier I suppose." Auron answered.

"Ah, okay," Troy turned back, matching gazes. "White Mage, your cookies are AWESOME."

Her eyes suddenly widened, and just as quickly she shrunk reclusively backwards, hiding a blush. "T-thank you."

Auron picked up after another awkward silence. "Fires of the Vana'dielian Tarutaru race is the White Mage paragon. She knows a fair amount of magic but specializes in the healing arts. Proficient users of white magic are few and far between across the universe, magic that often fills gaps that our technology cannot. As a matter of fact, she is passing her skills onto a small number of disciples from previous worlds we have 'won'."

Troy looked around again, slapping his hands together. "Well! It's great to be able to meet you all, an..." Troy fell limp again as he watched the welcome wagon rapidly come apart at the seams, all already at least halfway to their respective doors. He ground his teeth and turned back to Auron.

"I apologize," Auron mumbled, adjusting his spectacles. "it's just that by now they are terribly used to my... recruiting drive. Not many possess the fortitude to endure our travels; physical, mental or both."

"Your membership DOES look a little lacking..."

Auron slouched slightly. Slowly his head turned to one of the nearby doors, and he raised a pointed finger to it. "That is your room. If nothing else, you should be pleased with its... accommodations after you are done mentally altering it."

Troy cautiously closed the gap between himself and the door. He gave a sheepish look over his shoulder as his hand rested weakly on the door's handle. Taking a deep breath, he twisted it fast and threw it open - and was shocked by what he saw. He jogged in, glancing around in disbelief. What lied inside was a perfect copy of his shoddy, wooden-board-construction Koopa Troop barracks hall, although only the bunk at the far end had a trunk at its base. Even the window on the far wall remained, giving an open view of Last Chance Ramparts' parade grounds. Any discussion of the room's physics were tossed to the side as Troy leapt to the opposite corner of the room.

"OmigodomigodomiGOD!" Troy hugged one of the parked go-kart's rollcage struts. The vehicle was parked in the open corner, in flawless condition.

"...like you subconsciously entered Shambhala, you created a room representing your most tangible definition of home. As a result, copies of all your personal belongings exist here... although I was expecting something a little more extravagant."

Troy's attention shifted to the window. He clasped his hands down on the sill, sticking his head out. "...I thought you said we were under area constraints."

"From what the others have told me, an intricate series of spacetime inflections and gravitational anchors are what create the illusion of outside areas, if people desire them. In other words, I wouldn't climb out there if I were you."

"Sorry." Troy lifted his leg back inside.

"Unfortunately I'm not able to give you a conclusive explanation on how to manipulate your chamber as you see fit... although you may find that it shifts around with your subconscious thought."

"I'm comfortable, thanks." Troy already lied on his mattress, clicking his heels against the foot of the bunk's frame.

Auron and Troy twiddled their thumbs and ankles respectively.

"...now what?" Troy mumbled.

"What?"

"Now what does the Covenant move onto now that I'm here?"

"We repeat the cycle. We make ourselves known to worlds that the Nepenthes try to propagandize, and we continue to battle them until we can figure out what it is about us seeking our hearts and civilians maintaining contact with the Vast that angers them so."

"So I might be giving someone the same mentorhood you gave me."

"Inevitably so," Auron looked to the 'window'. "For now, though, rest. Until that time comes you may do what you wish as long as you remain within Shambhala. Eventually you will be able to create rifts leading in and out of Shambhala and thus be able to return to worlds you have previously visited, Plit included. First however, you will require a great deal of training in order to do so safely and securely."

"After all this... I'm going to have to take you up on that offer." Troy weakly rolled to the side, slumping over the bed. Auron nodded to him, pivoting and exiting the room. The door clicked shut and fizzled in the air as it, too, took the form of the barracks entrance.

All the while, Troy stared at the wall with tired yet unclosing eyes.

* * *

Dull, awkward clunks, migraine-inducing and aesthetically unpleasing, a hammer being lifted and dropped with no target in sight. Soft blue lights rose from the darkness to look upon the sad state of affairs, dimming again as their emotion died down and resigning to hang in the air to create an aisle of shame. The translucent floor shimmered and shined, no ill effects being visited upon it as a pair of gigantic plated legs limped along top of it in agony. A grotesque pile of soldered and bolted panels made up the golem that trodded on the gleaming surface. A cracked black orb with a variety of lensed eyes sat at its peak, held up by a mess of tubes and wires that alternatively pulsed energy and viscous liquids through it. More sparks of light appeared up ahead, quickly moving about and turning in forced 90-degree paths to form a crude circle. Below, countless stars painted the cosmic landscape, far away and threatening to consume everything all at the same time.

Standing within the pattern, a tall, lanky man draped in loose-fitting jeans and a tattered, torn black bomber jacket continued to dab a long cigarette in and out of his lips. He glanced over his shoulder as the abomination closed in on him, making his dark shades glint and causing his grin to give off an unearthly light as his jagged teeth tried helplessly to interlock in some coherent manner. "Well well well. What do we have here... you can stop where you are, and give me a hearty thank-you for keeping your fuckin' iron lung there in tip-top shape, it seems you're taking pit stops more and more lately aren't you?"

"UNNGHHHHHGHH." Unknown machinery from within began to screech and scream in self-conflict.

The other man haphazardly let the cig drop from his hand, crushing it with his heel before moving towards the automaton. "How cute. What did they call you this time? I bet you have a heartwarming story of how you were some world's savior until the big bad Keypers decided to grow a brain and see through your halfass diplomacy." he leant forward, cupping his ear to the machine. He flinched back as it let out another anguished, hissing cry. "...SIRIUS! What the hell kind of name is that? See, this is why you've experienced SOME degree of success in making people shut up about dimensional ruptures, but that would never last, no. You have to have a badass presence, and you have to take badass measures! Raise your fists up high, tear the heavens, and drop those bombs on anyone that gets any fleeting idea in their tiny heads to oppose you! That's how the Lantz does his shit!"

Lantz looked over in another direction as a loud squeak echoed in the infinite. A bored-looking Tarutaru girl sat half-slumped over a beanbag chair that had not been there seconds before, with her head resting in one palm. She had a head of slicked-down, pale blue hair that was tied into two smaller tails at the sides of her face, and hollow pupils that made it difficult to imply anything besides an agitated glare at their target. "You sure took your sweet time. No victory trophies either."

"You cold-hearted spiritual entity you!" Lantz suddenly spun around again to face the life-support system. "You've been gone how long and you didn't even think of bringing back Tetron some souveneirs!" he flapped one of his straw-like arms out, glancing at an enormous wristwatch. "...1435 years! Am I going to have to instate a curfew young man?" Lantz goosestepped over to the golem as it began to convulse. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

Tetron watched with a raised eybrow as Lantz stuck his ear into the robot's face once again. Lantz's facial expression contorted all around as if he were computing one long insult in response to whatever the machine's interface was explaining to him. Lantz lurched back as if he'd eaten a hook to the gut.

"Hahah. Hahahaha! HAHAHAH!! Man, you are totally off your goddamn ROCKER! Well, I assume I'd be too if my physical representation died every couple years! You're sayi-ahahah... oh, I'm sorry, let me start again... E-Ederick and Ameile are running around kicking ass and taking names you say... I assume Mother Goose is going to send some of her emissaries out now that other childrens' tales heroes are making the jump into the real-world market! You DUMBASS." Lantz planted one hand firmly onto the plated chest of the abomonation and pushed. Every hydraulic system within the construct jerked forward at once and it collapsed onto its back with an earth-shattering crash. "Wait until the Master figures out what you've been doing..."

A thrum of machinery filled the air and a dull blue light washed over all three. Inbetween Lantz and Tetron a large glass cylinder had appeared, its own wiring having entrenched itself into the floor at a moment's notice. Within the sickly azure liquid that filled it, bobbing and swaying, was a smaller yet more physically built humanoid figure, that of a young man. Pale grey hair floated upwards around his head, but attention was suddenly shifted to one of its cold blue eyes as it opened. "...dare I say..." an apathetic, computer-generated voice slithered out of a loudspeaker on the machine. "...Lantz is right in this case. I see from the contents of your post-operation databank that you have quite the theory as to why Ederick and Ameile could exist within NSX. However..." the speaker crackled as suddenly several holographic screens appeared in the air, displaying a smorgasbord of archival clippings, biological data and text passages from an indeterminate time.

The speaker clicked again and its operator seemed to completely ignore what was being laid before him. "...theories are not evidence. Nor are legends. The saga of Ederick and Ameile is merely an instrument of morale, something that reaches all around the inner workings of NSX and gives us hope that Outer Creation can and will be salvaged someday from the Great Dark. They are, for lack of more eloquent terming, the prototypical wielders of the keyblades. And thus an example of the proper ones, I might add. I am not entirely certain what besides incompetence stopped you from retrieving Troy Kiemen's keyblade after it became clear that his ambitions were being corrupted, but I- yes, I am fully aware from your data entries that the Troy entity was both assaulted by rogue keypers and protected from you by many others. But the information he and his cohorts managed to distribute around World RTT-X9, known as Plit in common nomenclature, has already done an incredible amount of damage to its sterile nature. The large number of unearthed keyblades, combined with Troy and his comrades' influence, will inevitably lead to large-scale offworld exploration in pursuit of greater knowledge regarding the Heartless and Vast. You will remain here under my watch until I decide where to best use you. For now, Lantz and Tetron will carry out intervention operations in your place."

Lantz pumped an arm in the air. "That's what I like to hear. We'll be waiting on your call, big man."

Tetron bowed. "I could use some fresh air."

The android's head creaked to focus its lenses on the two as they vanished into paper-like rips in the air. A loud crackle echoed throughout the endless chamber as they violently crumpled into themselves. Silence loomed like an oncoming tidal wave, although to the two that remained it may as well have been vinegar washing over them.

"...you waged a mighty battle to prove your sentience," the man muttered through the sound system. "but my patience is wearing thin. You gave it to him. You gave him your power, the Soulscreen. If he were to ever fully learn of its proper use... the results could be catastrophic towards our cause. For you to grant him such boons under the premise that he is Ederick incarnate... it is nonsense. He is no savior, he is merely one of many that wish to turn NSX on its head in the pursuit of selfish, harmful truths. Were you not one of the most destructive weapons in the galaxy, I would say that you are rapidly becoming a liability. Now... I must think of a way to resolve this ordeal. I would like to make one more thing clear before you are dismissed."

The speaker coughed out another blast of static.

"...your memory lapses and identity crises resulting from Soulscreen transfer notwithstanding, you are Belphegor, one of many Genesis Devices. Such is a fate that you ultimately cannot avoid. Your lone-wolf self-righteous heroic antics must cease."

As quickly as the preservation container had appeared, it was gone. Belphegor sat in the light of the stars, a silent scream radiating out from his electronic mind as the twinkling lights around him gradually died out around him and he was swallowed again by the darkness.

* * *

A bright red speedbag flew around in a chaotic circle as a flurry of white fists slammed into it. If one had examined it carefully, its entire surface was coated with pockmarks from what seemed like years of abuse from spiked knuckles. Knuckles continued to slam the training instrument around, letting out dull grunts. His entire chamber had been converted into a small gym, with concrete flooring, bordered with bright orange drywall. A series of small muscle-training machines and bicycle/stairtraining apparati lined one wall, with nothing but a small cot for resting on the other side. Knuckles glanced over as the rapping of metal rang out, still not giving the punching bag a moment of rest. "C'min."

The door creaked open, on Knuckles' side made of a white hardwood. Troy sheepishly stuck his head in, suddenly forcing himself through as he was instantly bewildered at what he saw. "What's all this?"

"My idea of comfort, that's what." Knuckles delivered one last hard punch to the bag, nearly sending it flying off its support as he stepped out of the way. "How can I help you?"

Troy rubbed his head. "...sorry. I just didn't know exactly the scope of difference between peoples' rooms in here when Auron said that they bent to their owners' wills." Troy's gaze turned to the rickety cot. "...really?"

"Was Monica's idea. I was fine sleeping on the floor but you know how women are."

Troy cleared his throat. "...well, anyways... I figured I'd just explore a little, get to know the neighbors a little more."

"Most of them aren't home." Knuckles grunted.

"...ah." Troy tilted his head. "Monks aren't quite social butterflies, I'm aware, but you don't have to be an ass about it."

"Heh." Knuckles smirked. "Looks like you aren't so fragile yourself. I think we'll get along just fine."

"Well now that we've broken each others' shells here, I actually DO have to get to know my neighbors. Was your journey here as screwed up as mine?"

"Do you know what makes me a Monk?" Knuckles grumbled.

"Do enlighten me." Troy shot back.

"On my world, before the entire spiel with the Heartless and Vast, I lived alone on a great floating island in the sky of the world of Mobius, guarding a gem of power that was never supposed to fall into the hands of... well, anyone else who knew that it could pump out enough raw energy to power the entire planet for eons, really. It was the duty of my father, my father's father, my entire ancestry. There I remained as they once had, shut out from civilization as a whole. If it weren't for the continuous stream of people on their way to kill me and claim it for themselves, well, maybe then I actually would've felt lonely or something. There were some that aided me... but not many."

"What happened?"

"...it's easy enough to foil the plans of whatever mad scientist or entrepreneur or corrupt military leadership or corporate entity, but... then, THEY came. The Heartless and Vast... I had spent my entire childhood training my body and cleansing my mind to become a deadly weapon, but that ultimately did little to stop them as they quite literally swarmed over the rock I called home and spirited the artifact away. I'd survived the onslaught, but everything I had worked for, what I had been told to live my whole LIFE for had blinked away in an instant and there simply was no direction for me to turn anymore, or anything for me to do for that matter. I lived as an outcast, and at that moment, an outcast without purpose. Auron came to me, and while I was a little skeptical of his timing, we began to search for evidence of it and those that had taken it... but in the end, I didn't even know if it WAS such a bad thing that the responsibility was off my back. I mean, they're just out there chewing on it for all I know, and it's obvious that they don't even know how to actually HARNESS it to blow something the hell up or whatnot. As a matter of fact, they had literally swept in there, taken the stone and left Mobius entirely. We assumed that it simply contained a metric ton of life force within it and it acted as a bugzapper to them. They swooped in, got distracted by it, and zapped it out while leaving the rest of the world intact."

"...that would make sense," Troy mumbled. "The Heartless and Vast don't even know what hearts they're actually looking for, so they could just take a big convenient mass of energy and chew through that hoping to find something of relevance... but, why are you here then? I thought you said you wanted that responsibility off your shoulders anyways."

Knuckles had already started digging in his earhole with one of his spikes. "Hello? I'm not going to keep this story going if you're not going to listen. What the hell else was I supposed to do? I had no other place in that world, I'd been stuck on a big floating rock in the sky for 20-odd years with no other life skills beyond flawless senses of hearing and smell, and the ability to beat the living tar out of anything that moved. Of course I was going to put myself to work for Auron, who already had another path of justice for me to follow. Oh, and that whole self-heart-discovery thing. I wager there's a bit of revenge mixed in there somewhere too."

"Well, I can't say that this whole explanation is any less absurd than mine." Troy muttered.

Knuckles shook his head. "Yeah, that's kind of why it's a DIFFERENT WORLD. I know you've been here for all of half an hour, but I don't think you're totally understanding the implications of those two words. Do you happen to know what gravity is, and what happens when you go somewhere where it's different?"

"Not a clue."

Knuckles snorted back a chuckle. "Boy, you're in a for a shock. Now, anyways, be happy I've given you most of my nitty-gritty, because now you have to tell me yo-" Knuckles threw his arms in the air as several heavy pounds made the door thunder. "WHAT IS IT? WE'RE KIND OF BUSY IN HERE!!"

The door swung open, stopping perfectly at a 90-degree angle with the wall. Auron was already halfway through putting his overcoat back on, but he still kept one hand free in order to push the bridge of his spectacles up. "We have a situation."

* * *

Troy sat back on the same sofa as before, taking up more than half of his as he slouched with his legs spread far apart and an arm slumped over the back of the couch. Everyone else returned to their own respective seats, with the exception of Fires, who was now accompanied by a young man and woman draped in blue and pink doctors' scrubs respectively. Auron stood in the center of the chamber, near a black marble desk that everyone had subconsciously coaxed the lobby into providing for what would hopefully one of their regular meetings.

"I'm going to keep this as brief as possible," Auron mumbled. He waved his right arm weakly in the air and a series of holographic displays flashed into the air. "Several months ago the Cornerian military of the Lylat system had one of its smallest satellite worlds, Fortuna, cut off from homeworld communications. The radar station there housed fewer than 100 Cornerian staff and comprised over 70% of the planet's actual population. We had successfully intercepted a small-scale Heartless symbiote swarm responsible for the attack on the facility and managed to secure 3 abandoned keyblades near Fortuna's south and north poles for their use."

"And we're recalling this why?..." Siegfried grunted.

"A nearby space atoll is now experiencing the same phenomeona." Auron drew a circle in the air with his finger, somehow causing the screens to link up in a 3x3 square. A three-dimensional map of what appeared to be the Lylat solar system filled the composite screen, tilting, turning and finally zooming in to a neighboring sphere. "Katina, the desert jewel of Lylat. Katina employs even fewer military staff than Fortuna, largely due to its uncomfortable proximity to Solar, Lylat's central yellow dwarf star. Nonetheless, Katina's orbital relay station remains one of the keystones of their inner-system ballistics defense. As most of you are aware, in Lylat there is an ongoing civil war between Corneria's space navy and a large guerilla faction lead by dishonorable discharges from Corneria's highest tiers of research and development."

"And you're going to say that this thing was hit by a spaceborne mass of Heartless or Vast or something." Knuckles interjected.

"Well, that was literally what I was going to say," Auron sighed. "Corneria does have a modest keyper presence, but none that can react to this situation in a feasible amount of time. An emergency broadcast has just pulsed over Lylat's second quadrant, and the damage description therein matches that typically caused by a Heartless hive. From our past keyper scouting operations in the Lylat system we still retain connections with their chief of defense, and they have agreed to grant us top-level security access as long as it takes to purge the Heartless. This doesn't look like a terribly deep infestation..." Auron paused as the four screens in the bottom-right of the array blinked to show what appeared to be the blueprints of the structure, with an oozing, inky-dark patch washed over its bottom. "...but we must deal with it before it grows into something more troublesome."

"Go in, stab things, cut out. Works for me." Troy slapped his hands together as he rose to his feet, and started to head towards the main lobby door. He flinched as Auron cleared his throat.

"I will be sending three members on this mission." Auron folded his arms and surveyed his audience once more. "This should be a fairly tame exercise, so I would like Troy to be one of them, for orientation purposes."

"Me, new guy and Monica." Knuckles tilted her head towards the latter, who nodded in confirmation.

"Whoa whoa." Troy waved his palms in front of him. "What's with the voluntelling here, I kind of knew I was going to get mercilessly hazed here, but doesn't Sagfie-"

"Siegfried." Monica sighed.

"Whatever, I'm not good with accents."

"It doesn't have anything to do with accents." Knuckles said flatly.

"WHATEVER." Troy threw up his arms in disgust, continuing to ignore Siegfried's more-than-mildly-annoyed glare. "What do Dark Knight and Fires have to say about this?"

Fires jerked back in her seat, clearly caught off guard by the inquisition. "Uh, I, erm-"

The man sitting next to her nodded to Auron. "If you require her for a mission, we can remain here until then. We still have a lot of reading to do."

"Who are these two?" Troy stood with his palms folded behind his head, fidgeting impatiently.

"Goddamn you're deaf," Knuckles shook his head. "These are some of Fires' students that we were talking about earlier. They're trained medical professionals that're trying to glean off some white magic from her."

Troy glanced back over, finding the two had already advanced on him. The male of the pair was of an average human height, with a head of scraggly chestnut hair and similarly dull brown eyes shielded by slim perscription glasses. His maringally shorter female counterpart had most of her pale blonde hair tied out of the way of her misty green eyes, in a long, waist-length ponytail.

"Derek Stiles."

"Angie Thompson."

"Troy Kiemen." Troy nodded to each seperately, administering firm handshakes.

Auron watched a glint of light move across the floor, deep in thought. He looked back between Derek and Angie as he folded his arms in continuous contemplation. "...on the other hand, it may be beneficial to have Fires on as support in case anything were to go wrong, as Troy is still particularly out of his element. Are you two okay with Fires leaving for a while? The group should not be terribly long but I can't give you an exact timeframe as far as this operation."

"It's okay," Angie chirped. "We still have a lot of Fires' reading to get through."

"We can occupy ourselves," Derek added. "If you need your people for missions then we don't want to get in your way."

"I'm still here you know." Troy grumbled.

Auron distributed nods about his audience with an almost robotic motion. "Troy, Monica, Knuckles and Fires will depart for the Apex Deep-space Scan Facility in orbit around Katina in the Lylat system. There, they will work with the local authorities to deal with the Heartless hive burrowed in its depths while it is still benign. While the infestation is fairly limited and has not begun posing any life-threatening behavior towards the Apex crew, and thus you will be working on a leniant schedule, we must maintain good favor with Corneria. You are free to plan your actions as you please, but please work in the best interests of Corneria as you are able."

"Let's get a move-on then." Knuckles coughed.

"Hang on, what ab..." Troy raised an arm, but it flapped in defeat like so much wet pasta as he realized that the four of them had, again, been dumped into the white abyss that bordered Shambhala. "...I don't think I'm ever going to understand this place in the least."

"We might not be able to think that room in particular away from us..." Monica hummed. "But we can think ourselves out of it."

"Who's going to be doing the cutting this time?" Knuckles kicked at an imaginary ground. "Y'think Fires should do it? I mean, it's been a while since she's been out of the house so to speak. Hell, I don't think I've seen her bother to take out her keyblade for who knows how long..."

"Troy can do it." Monica said gleefully.

"Cut?" Troy scratched his scalp. "Cut what?"

"Our way out of here, what else is there around here to?" Monica stabbed a finger against the front of Troy's shell.

"I still don't get what y..." Troy trailed off as his vision distorted, melting the air around him into a vivid recollection of hours prior. Auron stood firmly in the main chamber of the Toad Town castle, gripping his blade tightly as it jutted out in front of him. Its vicious tip traced a circular pattern in the air with an accuracy and certainty reserved for penmanship. "...ohhhhh. You mean..."

"So you've seen Auron pull it off before," Knuckles sang. "Well that certainly makes explaining this easier."

"EASIER?" Troy spat. "You think this is any less smoke-and-mirrors to me than anything else I've seen in the past couple hours?"

"...if it's too much trouble for Troy..." Fires mumbled. "...I can do it."

"Last time you opened a gate you gave us a red-carpet entrance to the middle of a nebula." Knuckles groaned.

Troy bit his lip, separating himself from the three as they began to argue between themselves. Fires was very obviously getting swatted down by all the stray insults that Monica and Knuckles deflected off each other. He stared wistfully at Fires again, finally shaking the gloom from his head and pushing his way through the gaggle. "QUIT IT. Quit. It. Just... tell me what to do and I'll give it a shot. I don't want to be a burden on anyone here, so please give me a chance."

Fires' expression had gone from not existing to one of bewilderment. Knuckles muttered under his breath as he pivoted away from the other two to stare Troy down. "...alright, but we have to make this relatively fast, we're still on a schedule no matter how relaxed it is. Now, listen... you know how you carved your way into Shambhala, yeah? Auron was able to do his own little jig there and then dump you two into limbo right before the actual physicality of Shambhala for educational purposes, and you made yourself a front door..." Knuckles twirled his wrist in the air. "...like that."

"Go on."

"Well, that's mostly your keyblade doing that... it might not've looked like it, but it's a part of you, you know, so all it took was a simple mental request to tear up the more... subtle dimensional fabric directly adjacent to Shambhala in order to enter its core facility. To actually get all the way in and out of Shambhala, on the other hand, that takes a little more muscle. The core structure of Shambhala is set in stone, as you'd know if you listened to what Auron had to say about the main lobby, but you're still able to enter through your assigned subchamber. By bringing you this close to, and eventually into, Shambhala, Auron's attuned your keyblade to the joint so with a little practice you can skip in and out as you please. Your key makes an excellent weapon and... well, key. Anyways, you can actually stretch these modules from Shambhala's 'frame' as you please as part of your tenant contract so to speak, and-"

"Manipulate my room all the way through subspace to wherever I happen to be, tear a hole in reality, step through to it, and return my room to where it was."

Knuckles stared dully at Troy. "...w... well, uhh, yeah, that's one way of doing it."

Troy returned a similiarly-stony gaze. "Thank you for revealing one more mind-crapping thing about Shambhala that has absolutely nothing to do with my present situation. Now what dimensional abuse is required in order to LEAVE Shambhala? Yanking a predefined and familiar box through space-time sounds just a little easier than pushing it through in reverse, especially considering that I have absolutely no idea what or where our destination is. Is this like those comic books where the teleporting superheroes don't want to poof somewhere they haven't been before because they're afraid they'll accidently fill every orifice of their body with brick and mortar?"

"It's like you say..." Knuckles rubbed at his scalp. "...do it in reverse. Jab a malleable chunk of Shambhala out to where you wanna go. Except, again... well, I guess you actually explained it better than I was planning on. Just so we don't plow through someone's house while trying to park, or their planet for that matter, we have to use frames of conscious reference to determine where to settle down. Something like, since we're going to this space station or whatever, their local insignia or emblem. Then, cross reference clusters of lifeforms across the particular plane of space we'd be going to and use their subconscious recognition of it to draw an approximate physical manifestation. And then aim somewhere nearby to escape that little orifice-filling issue."

"Then let's do it." Troy stared up into the stale air, watching as, again, a swarm of displays calculating archaic digits and variables tore through the space in front of them and threatened to consume the group.

"W-wide-deep tera-parsec psychoanalysis broadcast in progress." Monica spat.

Knuckles stumbled back. "...did he just do all that himself?!"

Troy waved an arm weakly. "It's just like you say, all you gotta have is the resolve to do something... Shambhala will take care of the rest! I think I can get used to this! Listen you little submissive subspace, where are we going in the wide wide universe today?"

"Relevance levels increasing... we've got a lock." Monica dug in her pocket, flapping out a piece of paper emblazoned with a quartered red shield with crossed swords. "...adjusting for matter disruption. Planar coordinates are up!"

The Chronicle flashed into Troy's hands and he raised its shaft to eye level. "If this blade goes where I want it to... and Shambhala's free area goes where I want it to... then it's just a matter of pinching the fabric and putting a good gash into it." Troy huffed as he suddenly thrust the blunt tip of the keyblade forward, grimacing as it plunged into the void itself with a resulting ripple. Troy grunted as he worked the blade about, carving an uneven circle his height through space like so much paper. Yanking the cutting utensil out, he hopped back and hurled a clenched fist forward with every ounce of muscle in his arm. It impacted with the loose panel of reality, detonating it with the sound of shattering glass. Troy chuckled to himself as he stared into the even-moreso-mindbending wormhole beyond, beginning to feel the tell-tale suction. He let the afterglow sink in, eventually turning back to the dumbstruck Covenant seniors behind him.

"Anyone have to hit the can before we go?"


	12. Starship Troopa

Out in the inky darkness of space, more specifically the little stretch of abyss known to the locals as the Lylat star system, planets of wildly different colors swung around each other with only the two at each end managing to display any stability - two giant green orbs, one vibrantly cheery and the other a sickly shade of vomit.

Somewhere inbetween, a foursome of differently sized, shaped and colored space suits began to hover into the gravitational field of dull beige Katina - some more elegantly than others.

"That is why you typically ask if anyone has any other concerns before you open a door into deep space," Knuckles' irate voice crackled through to the other three comm systems. "You're lucky at least one of us can think up a life-support system for you AND themselves."

The jets on Troy's cherry-red suit fired wildly, slowly but surely dragging him out of an uncontrolled six-axis spin. "Shut up."

All at once the troupe's heads pivoted to lock onto their target. Looming in front of them, larger than life, was the chaotic Katina, its dry, cracked exterior swarming with wispy clouds and broken by outcropping mountain ranges. Lurching into view from the left was a gigantic disc-like structure, with bulky rectangular spires jutting out of the top and bottom of the patchwork red-grey-black colony.

"Is this... I mean, it's pretty obvious this is it, but..." Troy trailed off.

"We have to hurry," Monica spat. "The facility has the means to lock loose spacewalkers into its localized gravitational field, but with its constant spin we only have a short time to get into range if we actually want to arrive at our prearranged hangar."

"That sounds awkward," Troy murmured. "If someone wants to build a fort in space why do they have to have it flailing around like this?"

"Do they teach you anything about physics where you're from?"

"Well actually I was told that I would've made the soccer team, but I was getting put in the brig too much and-"

"Never mind." Knuckles said flatly.

* * *

**NSX: chApteR 11**

**sld;n v['opi4]2nolp**

**STarShiP trOOPa**

* * *

The four stood in one of the station's drab drydocks, a short distance away from the sickly green energy field that divided one wall of the chamber from deep space. Fires occaisionally flinched as sparks from the arc welding of a nearby fighter craft lunged at her feet. Greasy tubing, chains and jagged, mechanically-cut repair instruments that appeared to double as torture devices draped down from the ceiling. Troy passed the time with a claw lazily twisting back and forth in one earhole while the others stood rigidly with their arms at their sides.

"Dude, we're trying to present an image here." Knuckles growled.

"And when the time comes for presenting an image, I will undoubtedly do so." Troy stared off into thin air as he spoke.

Before them waddled a short, pudgy figure in blinding-white admiral attire, one side of it obviously weighed down by countless medals, ribbons and awards. The walrus squinted its wrinkly eyes and shifting his cheeks from side to side, his stubby tusks following suit, as he assessed the group. "You are the mercenary group affiliated with this Auron man, yes?"

Troy looked back forward, lurching backwards. "HOLY CRAP IT'S A WALRUS!"

Knuckles facepalmed.

"Astute observation," the admiral huffed, his cheeks reverbing for a noticeable time afterwards. "Anyways, I am glad that you all could come on such short notice. You all must be tired from your journey here, that broadcast had only gone out 6 hours ago! Perhaps you would like to utilize our mess services or lounge about our officer quarters for the time being?"

"Time being?" Troy blurted. "I thought you guys had a Heartless problem."

"Well, to be totally honest, I'm still not entirely sure how you got here on such short notice, so the encoding for your red-level security passes hasn't completed yet. We will most likely have them prepared by the end of next curfew."

"Duuuude," Troy waved his palm in front of the admiral's face. "Heartless. Not quite the benign threat you believe them to be. Listen, we don't want to overstay our welcome here, couldn't you just get someone ELSE with security access to let us go down there to mop up or something?"

"Disregard that," Monica glared at Troy. "We will remain here for the time being."

"Eh..." Troy stared blankly at the red mage as she stepped ahead of him.

The admiral bowed. "By all means, make yourself at home. I will alert the proper authorities of your arrival. You will have free access to the ship that doesn't currently require special security access." the officer pivoted backwards and created a path towards an airlock door. Knuckles lead the group in a single-file line through the portal. Troy took the rear.

Troy opened his mouth to speak but was quickly drowned out by Monica. "Your concern about the Heartless is appreciated, but there's something you have to know, Troy... we're diplomats first and super soldiers second. We have to retain the trust of those that we gain contact with as best as possible WHILE protecting and informing them. Our code distinctly prohibits us from forcing ourselves upon offworlders like you just attempted to do, except in the case where lives are in immediate danger."

"What does this qualify as?"

"It's what your sarcasm says," Knuckles grumbled over his shoulder. "The Heartless here is a benign cluster. If people start poking at it, bad things will happen. But considering they called in specialists so to speak, I don't think that will be a concern. Let's just take things easy," Knuckles slowed to a stop, causing all those behind him to do the same. He glanced back to Troy. "...Troy, you really want to get this business over and done with so fast? These field trips aren't entirely about squashing Heartless and occaisionally Vast... they're to diversify your understanding of all these foreign worlds such that we'll be able to better understand their wishes better. That, again, is a responsibility of a diplomat."

* * *

"I don't think that's what Knuckles meant." Fires sighed.

Troy's head rested in a tilt on his palms, his elbows digging into the serving counter of the mess hall. He gazed at a tall aluminum coated box, biting his lip. Suddenly he threw himself back up to his feet, stabbing an index finger towards the device and looking down to Fires with a childish gleam on his face. "...what's this do?" Troy waited for an answer, the sudden silence revealing the mechanical humming of said object.

"...it's... a refridgerator," Fires mumbled. "It's used to preserve food."

Troy quickly spun around again, rubbing his chin. "Is preservation always that noisy?"

Fires rubbed her scalp, clearing her throat as she glanced over her shoulder at onlookers.

"...I'm sorry," Troy sighed. "I know I'm kind of a stupid country boy when it comes to even the things I've seen in Shambhala. From what I was told you must have to go through all these introductions to menial objects frequently. I don't get out in the universe very often."

"Neither do I." Fires said weakly.

"Bleh, how can you even say that," Troy waved his arm in frustration at the cryptic food-preservation machine. "Me being easily entertained and mystified by things that you name off like nobody's busin..." Troy trailed off. "...sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"No," Fires hoisted herself up onto a nearby table's chair. "I... I understand exactly what you're going through. Most of your confusion applies to me. I guess."

"What's that mean?"

Fires' head stuck out and pivoted in at least a dozen directions before she slowly stared down at the plain metal flooring with an embarassed flush. "...I'm not let out of Shambhala much. Mostly in specific cases where there's a need for on-site medical attention... like more hazardous situations, or if a new recruit is in the mix..."

"So much faith in me." Troy snarked, focusing his deadpannery in another direction. On the counter behind him a miniture version of himself punched a similarly-sized Auron in the gut.

Fires shook her head. "I don't have any actual combat experience... or survival skills for that matter. It's in the best interest of the Covenant for me to pass my skills onto people who are more able in the field... who can push those powers to a higher limit."

Troy blinked, slapping his hands on his hips. He lumbered over to Fires and fell into a crouch. Their faces hung within inches from the opposite's. "...what?"

"...well, that's about it really."

Troy stabbed a claw against Fires' snout, causing her to nearly throw herself off the chair. "Auron tells me that the ability to use white magic is a rare ability in the universe. And you can't demonstrate a powerful self-worth over that? I'm disappointed. You're training your successors here, who knows that all your friends aren't just going to throw you out with the dishwater once that second generation manifests itself?"

"Ehh??" Fires shrunk back. "How do you know they're going to do that?"

Troy shrugged weakly, rising back to a stand. "I don't. But friends are people that understand each other. Oh, and I didn't mean that last bit literally. But if you think your prospects of working abroad are threatened now, you might want to take a long hard look at how facilitating Derek and Angie will affect that. If you really want to get out in the universe with your associates, you have to let them know that you're going to push what they think are your boundaries. It's that simple. Those who encourage you to push those limits... friends. Those who don't, and simply use you to further their own goals, not so much."

"...how can I become a person like that... just look at me, I don't have the physi-" Fires let out a squeak as Troy's fingers dug into her cheeks, pulling them apart.

"Listen here missy, you might be the nurse here but it looks like I'm the psychologist." Troy let go, causing Fires' face to contract again with a painful-sounding snap. "What you need is an infusion of street smarts, self-esteem and weight training... though not necessarily in that order. Stick with me and I'll help you out. In return, you help me... well, you help me help you. Can we agree on that?"

Fires rubbed her reddening cheeks, for the first time matching Troy's glare with bright eyes and a smile. She gave him a firm nod. "Mhm."

The two jumped at the sound of heavy plastic eating utensils spilling across the floor. Slowly they turned their heads to the ever-reaching forcefield window, where another group of humanoid animals, lead by a purple-furred panther and wispy-tailed lizard, stood around and laid obscenities upon a pudgier, mud-furred badger.

"WHY do you have to make this so hard, not only for yourself, but for the people who make and live their lives on this station..." the feline chuckled with thinly-veiled frustration. "All that this situation requires is a brief, temporary lifting of Katina's security protocol and/or escort to the heart of this station's infestation, the application of a few precision military-grade lasers, and a modest credit fee submitted to our out-of-system accounts, and-"

The seated officer slurped noisily on his sealed drink's straw. "In any other case I would say that you're already going the wrong way through Katina's chain of command to make such an offer. Right now however, your mercenary group's already been beaten to the punch, and for a bargain I might add. Also, I wouldn't have figured that the charismatic Panther Caroso's negotiation techniques would immediately resort to threatening my food."

Panther threw his head back in vain disgust, casting an offward glance at anyone else who would have been watching. "Really now. And what riff-raff dumpster-flying space cadets hold vigilante justice in this sector as opposed to Star Wolf?"

Troy already loomed over his table, waving weakly. "Yo."

"And who in the hell are you supposed to be?"

"From the hell?" Troy licked his lip. "You flatter me."

"This infestation is not something that will merely be cut off with precision fire," the officer interrupted, obviously hoping to curb a conflict. "This hive is comprised of a top secret compound that requires the careful dismantling of by specialists commissioned by Corneria High Command itself. Upon further reflection, I don't think that there IS any permutation of this situation that would permit me to turn over command to Star Wolf. In fact, our contingency plan involves temporarily evacuating this station should the situation worsen."

"Hang on, 'top secret'?" Troy interjected. "How many people here know exactly what's going on?"

"Wide-angle analysi of the station exterior are only available to registered officers. At least 30% of the personnel on this station are in-training pilots. If they were to realize that they were sitting on top of a giant alien parasite... I don't want to know what kind of message that would send to people who still haven't registered their first sorties in their mind."

Panther's eyes slimmed, a grin creeping across his face as the devilish machinery in his head started to click and turn.

Troy folded his arms, gazing off into space. "That's why those locksmiths are taking their sweet time so to speak."

"...A-Auron already looked at the problem." Fires spoke.

"Eh?" Troy grunted. All eyes turned to Fires.

"Approximate ma... mass..." Fires drew a tubed paper out of her sleeve. "...1.7 tons. The Heartless hive isn't very dense but it has a big volume. It's benign in this stage, but if any conflicting Nobodies or Vast get close... it'll likely go berserk."

"Unless," Troy turned back to the standing officer. "We're the ones that do it. With the keyblades, it'll immediately come straight at us. That's how Heartless react. In retrospect I don't think I've ever questioned why that is, but... that's how it's worked so far anyways."

"I have no inkling of an idea what this Heartless business is about, but if it is as volatile as Corneria insists, I will let you, their professionals, dismantle this problem. I look forward to hearing of your success."

Fires bowed to the group and stepped back, preparing to return to her table. Troy quickly took the hint and stumbled back alongside her. The two mercenary pilots slipped away as attention was still being paid to the Covenant.

"Heheheheh," the lizard sloshed about his stringy tongue. "What kind of message would that send indeed... did you pick up those goods?"

Panther tugged at the left chest of his jumpsuit, flashing the glint of a tiny camera hidden under his loosened composite breastplating. "Oh trust me Leon, that 5 minutes is enough to create an advertising campaign for our services that the personel of this station will... NEVER forget."

* * *

Several hundred sectors below and counterclockwise around the superstructure, Knuckles and Monica found themselves in a similar chamber, shrunken into the back of one of the dozen officer's lounges in a circular booth seating. Both of them shielded themselves with messy towers of thin, glass-like tablets that served as brouchures for many of the ship's facilities and associated passenger spacecraft, avoiding the inquisitive stares of the few residents that weren't preoccupied with the sports broadcast blaring from a holographic screen a short distance away.

"Wonder where the others are frolicking." Monica mumbled, letting the plastic stylus hanging out of her mouth bob up and down.

"All that matters is if they're frolicking within the reach of the law," Knuckles grumbled. He tapped one of the plates (as precisely as he could with what amounted to a mitten, anyways), causing a light pattern of the Cornerian enlistment papers therein to elevate an inch off the surface. "Troy will, for example, frolick because we outright told him to and he knows better to piss off Auron, and Fires will simply frolick because this is the first time she's been out of Shambhala in months."

Monica rested a cheek on her palm, not paying much attention as it scrunched her corresponding eye shut. "If I were locked up with a revolving door of white magic freshmen I'd want to get the hell out of the place too."

"Auron let her out because that Troy sticking his extremities somewhere he shouldn't is an inevitable situation," Knuckles said in a monotonous rumble. "Although when all is said and done Fires is about that useful too. Derek and Angie might be annoying as all high hell but the faster we get them trained up and get that little bundle of emotional baggage flung out into whatever sphere of deep space she comes from the better..." Knuckles frowned as he caught Monica's agitated fluster. "...oh, what?"

"How can you say such a thing?" Monica spat. "Vana'diel is in shambles. That woman has nowhere to run! She wants to help us, and she provides us a valuable service... what about that offends you so much?"

Knuckles leapt to a forward lean suddenly, slapping his palms down on the table with a thud that made most of the tablets on the table shift around with the sound of tinkling glass. A couple of people at the projector glanced at the two. Realizing what he had just done, Knuckles forced his conversation into harsh whispers. "She has a weak mind, a weak spirit and a weak body. You might think it's all fine and dandy that we lend her Shambhala space in return for playing nurse, but every time she leaves Shambhala she is aloof, unassertive, unreliable and outright useless at critical times. She can't even get her keyblade out half the time; any combat situation she's involved in turns her into a vegetable, a liability or both!"

"And you were perfectly groomed for endless interstellar travel and perpetual combat coming off your homeworld, right?" Monica snapped. "Fires has none of the experience the others have gained since becoming part of the Covenant."

"No, but I've long ago accepted and built myself around the harshness of life... and realized that I'd be burning a lot of bridges as this neverending journey is even less forgiving. Fires has her white magic. That's it."

"You believe Troy is just going to rot and wither away too, right? He's terribly optimistic, you can't have that in your presence."

Knuckles lurched back, throwing his crossed ankles onto the table. "Who the hell knows, when he realizes how desolate and hostile this wide wide universe is, maybe he'll snap, maybe he won't. Just like anyone else we drag up to Shambhala it's a matter of observation, interrogation and mild prodding as far as determining how badly they want resolution and how far they're willing to reach out to it."

Monica shook her head. "You're unbelievable."

"It's perfectly believable," Knuckles snorted. "And that's what creates despair in the weak."

"I take that back. You're believable. You're also a pessimist."

"Can you blame me if I'm a little vocal as far as who I trust covering me?"

"Let's just forget about this whole conversation."

The two's bodily motions ground to a halt, leaving angry facial expressions pointed at one another. Their staring contest was interrupted as Knuckles found his gaze turning slowly to a growing ruckus amongst the sports spectators nearby. The holographic projector spat out clouds of static that didn't appear to entertain its watchers as much as the on-field brawl between players hidden behind it. The humanoid figures atop the device congealed in a flash of light, leaving an arrogantly smirking Panther standing with one hand on a hip and the other clutching a wrinkled piece of paper.

"This thing on?" Panther seemingly tapped the thin air, creating several scratches of feedback. "...heh. Your military comm channels are quite secure, yes, your consolidated recreational feed from Corneria, not so much. Ladies and gentlemen..." Panther stood at attention, waving his free arm down as he bowed to his audience. "...I understand that I happen to be violating the second-last Crestball game of the season, but as you will soon learn, I have very important information regarding your stay as ensigns aboard the Katina deep-scan facility that you will find more... concerning."

"Who's this clown supposed to be..." Knuckles muttered.

"You all DID sign your liability forms upon making your journey into the great beyond, assuming that death while serving the mother planet remains a very real threat. Of course, they would do everything within their power to provide you the training necessary to ward that possibility off. But how benevolent are these people? If something DID happen to go very, very wrong with this station, would they hide information from you to prevent widespread panic while they hobbled along trying to fix the situation through cheap, understaffed, underhanded and/or shady means? This IS a pivotal station on the Venom warfront, after all! What's losing a few grunts compared to the pandemonium that would ensue if people on the homefront knew that post-Andross Venomian guerillas were slipping into commercial space?"

"Did we just walk into a coup?" Monica droned.

"I think we just walked into a coup." Knuckles chuckled.

"Who ARE the nobodies that hold the fate of this station in their hands?" Panther laughed hysterically. "How about we reveal their brilliant tactical minds with this footage of not-so-casual conversation between Cornerian officers and one of their representatives?"

Knuckles choked. "Uh oh."

Panther flashed a toothy grimace at his imaginary audience before stepping out of sight. The image flickered again, turning into a regular flat display. Troy and Fires could be seen standing before the officer in the mess hall.

"Hang on, 'top secret'?" Troy interjected. "How many people here know exactly what's going on?"

"Wide-angle analysi of the station exterior are only available to registered officers. At least 30% of the personnel on this station are in-training pilots. If they were to realize that they were sitting on top of a giant alien parasite... I don't want to know what kind of message that would send to people who still haven't registered their first sorties in their mind."

Another blast of static. Knuckles' face contorted in rage.

"Approximate ma... mass..." Fires drew a tubed paper out of her sleeve. "...1.7 tons. The Heartless hive isn't very dense but it has a big volume. It's benign in this stage, but if any conflicting Nobodies or Vast get close... it'll likely go berserk."

"Unless," Troy turned back to the standing officer. "We're the ones that do it. With the keyblades, it'll immediately come straight at us. That's how Heartless react. In retrospect I don't think I've ever questioned why that is, but... that's how it's worked so far anyways."

Monica's skin drained of life as she slid down against the booth seating. Her eyes flicked left and right as she prepared to embrace the resulting gossip. Voices in the crowd began to call out.

"Top secret?"

"What kind of message this sends?"

"APPROXIMATE mass?"

"What the hell is a Nobody? A keyblade? What?"

"It'll go BERSERK? It's going to turn this station into a burning wreck or something?"

"She said benign..."

"'That's how it's worked so far'?"

The image twisted in on itself again, devolving to another wave of pulsing static for a few seconds before returning to a wide view of one of many nondescript officers' quarters. The exact same captain stood with his back partially to the audience, taking a solid amount of time to adjust his tie. He quickly pivoted to face the live camera. "This is an emergency local broadcast to all wideband communications displays aboard this Cornerian outpost. As you may be aware, outside sources, possibly of Venomian origin, have gained temporary control over our least-enforced frequencies and are using them to spread dissentful messages amongst our noble crew. None of what has been described in this flagrant demoralization is in fact true. Rest assured that we and the mother planet continue to value your lives and your selfless service above all else, and will not withhold any information regarding your day-to-day safety."

Knuckles grit his teeth as he looked away from the display, suddenly snapping his head further back as he caught the walrus welcoming officer waving to them from the door. "Monica. Let's go."

The two exited the room. Their superior jogged in front facing them, preventing them from reaching an actual walking speed. Knuckles heaved a sigh as he pushed the uniformed flab forward. "How long do you think those people are going to believe that crap?"

"A-about that!" the bureaucrat huffed. "This situation is getting most dire! We've triple-stepped your security badge creation after this most dreadful of scandals surfaced... we should be able to secure your badges within the hour! Please make your way down to the 4-Nth security hatch, we will be sending someone to pass them off to you."

"Damn it all, Troy was right," Knuckles glanced away, concealing a furious scowl. "We should've gotten straight through to the Heartless and finished this before we figured out how goddamn crooked you people were. Now answer my question!"

"The video took place in one of the officers' lounges. No one that actually saw the clip would actually be ranked high enough to be able to identify what or where the room even was."

"Well they sure as shit know what Troy and Fires look like!" Knuckles bellowed. His gaze intensified as he turned his focus away from the two. "Have either of you figured this out yet? Troy, Fires?"

* * *

Troy clenched his fists as he suddenly found Knuckles' disembodied speech digging away at his brain. "Him... ergh... I don't know who to be more furious at right now, this backwards bureaucracy or Panther!"

"Troy, right now the station crew are trying to pass the whole broadcast off as Venomian propaganda. I don't know how well that's going to work in their case, but if they see any of the cast and crew of that little theatrical production, ahem, wandering around the ship, that's going to completely ruin any positive spin that the station staff are trying to put on it."

"Well how the hell are we supposed to get down to the Heartless hive then? There's a million different reasons that the Shambhala rifts won't let me jump down to you, li-"

"That's right," Knuckles snarled. "You have none of the prerequisites we outlined in order to use the Shambhala rift to reach me. One, there's only a handful of people on this station that even know Monica and I are part of the clean-up crew, and therefore don't have any memory of me to draw from. Finding enough data points to approximate my location would be nearly impossible. Two, there's plenty that know YOU, though, and even if you WERE able to port down to me, there's a possibility we might all wind up in a high-traffic area. If they see you or Fires, well, we've already outlined that. Anarchy would ensue."

"How do we get to you then?" Troy chewed his lip.

"You don't. You and Fires return to Shambhala. Monica and I will deal with the infestation. We're working against the clock now."

"Knuckles. KNUCKLES!" Troy slammed a fist down on the nearest table as he continued to (at least it would have appeared as such if anyone occupied the mess hall with them) snarl audibly to himself. "This is unreal, are they suggesting I sit on my hands on my first mission?! This doesn't give them any more reasons to not dislike me!"

Fires had already sat down, shaking her head weakly as she stared through the sweeping window into deep space. "...it's just as I figured... I was under the assumption that I could come down here and help this mission become a success, but I've just become a liability again, haven't I..."

"The hell did I tell you?" Troy muttered back. "We're going to justify ourselves no matter what! But... for all intents and purposes, we've locked ourselves down... how are we supposed to use that psycho-anally-warp crap to get to those two without a coherent fart in the wind as to where they've ever been seen?..."

"Troy!..." Fires leapt back up to her feet. "What they're saying is right, we have to leave before we cause any more diplomatic damage here! I understand that you're concerned about the concentration of the Heartless here, but Knuckles and Monica are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves!"

"Well excuse me, I'm a little untrustworthy of them treating a benign Heartless at face val..." Troy trailed off. He stared off into space a moment, mouthing words to himself before clenching his fists. "...that's it! We have to stop by Shambhala for a few minutes, there's something I need to make sure of..."

"A few minutes? What are y-" Fires' hair blew back as Troy's keyblade already began tearing a circular rift into the air. The weakened reality shifted and crumbled under the force of Troy's other fist. Shambhala stood open before the two again. Fires lurched forward as Troy grabbed her wrist in a vicegrip and leapt through the dimensional gate. The two stumbled to a stop in Troy's chamber, but no attention was paid to the surroundings as they burst into motion that took them out through the lobby and Shambhala's Troy-abridged front door. The metal hallway folded inwards in an almost accordian-like manner as they ran, granting them instantaneous access to the outer 'space' of Shambhala.

"Wh-what... what are you doing?!" Fires screeched.

Troy broke his grip, stepping forward in a 180 spin that left him facing down the white mage with a finger firmly planted onto the side of his head. "Don't you get it? We're missing a piece of the puzzle here! There's no stable thought aboard that entire station that confirms Knuckles' location. There WILL be, though - when he wakes up the Heartless cluster and gets the whole mess going after him, there'll be a big freaking blob of killer instinct that'll be focused ENTIRELY on him and Monica! We can completely bypass the entire space station and zap ourselves into battle with perfect accuracy without any of the Cornerians knowing!"

"...maybe you should have mentioned that to them..."

"And get another parental speech?" Troy had already written his space suit over himself, hunching down to tighten the straps on one of the plated boots. "Get your gear on and let's go!"

"W-WH-WHAT?! You want to fight that thing head on from the outside?!"

Troy stood with a haphazard grimace and a gesturing finger in the air. He adjusted his pose several times, making sure to avert his eyes with each iteration as he attempted to fabricate his next sentence. "...well they did say they were going to fight it from the-"

"No, no they didn't."

"...awkward."

Fires had already grappled onto Troy's leg, pulling it back and forth. "Please, just forget about that and let's get inside, if Auron finds that we've already returned without a debriefing-"

"WELL I'LL JUST CHALK IT DOWN AS SUPPORT FIRE!" Troy exclaimed. "You, out there, whatever you are, I want to do a search for the Katina deep-space scan facility in the Lylat system... and do a subsearch for Knuckles, you know, he's got a pad here and whatnot."

Again translucent displays zapped and zotted into existence from every conceivable angle, displaying a map of the station similar to Auron's briefing. A bright red blip appeared in its lower-center, linked by a dotted line to a gigantic cluster of flashing indigo lights along the bottom of the station.

"The hell?" Troy flapped an arm absentmindedly at the screens. "He's still all the way up there? Is that red tape ever going to stop cutting into our throats?"

"How is that?" Fires murmured. "If he's up there... then who awoke the Hea-"

"Monica Raybrandt." Troy said sternly. Again the displays clicked and whirred. Precisely the same results blinked into living color. Troy grunted and slammed a clenched fist against one, causing it to crackle and dissipate into a text prompt. "...uh?"

***WARNING*  
PASSIVE SUPERSENTIENCE IN TARGET ZONE.  
MASS THOUGHT REFERENCE WILL BEGIN TO DETERIORATE RELEVANCE LEVELS.  
ENTITY TRACKING MAY BEGIN TO DISPLAY INACCURATE RESULTS.  
MATTER TRANSFER TO TARGET ZONE DEFUNCT IN 1:46.

"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Troy rammed his snout against the screen as the timer began to quietly tick its way down. "NOW what are we supposed to..." He trailed off as he realized everything around had turned greyscale, including but not limited to Fires' irritated cries.

For that matter, time had stopped.

"Well it's quite simple, really." Ederick strode up alongside Troy, causing him to leap to the side with a yelp.

"Will you not DO THAT?" Troy growled.

"Will you not STOP WHINING?" Ederick shot back. "Take a look, right there, yeah, again, like you've been doing for the past few minutes. You're wasting time here. Someone's stirred that Heartless cluster up, and it's smelling plenty of fresh Nobodies to throw itself up against. See, that's the problem. Those things are enough of a mental mess on their own, but you have a HIVE MIND that's handing out the instructions."

"In english?"

"It's locked onto every lifeform on that station and is quite literally managing to think about all of them AT THE SAME TIME. Oh, it's also passing down that information to each of its slaves. Your wide-deep tera-parsec psychoanalysis broadcast will be rendered useless as far as finding you a safe place to land there when they throw around every possible permutation of directed thought. That is, if you keep sitting here and letting its sick little tentacles pierce every level of that space station."

"...hang on," Troy interrupted. "It said that it's BEGINNING. Then someone just-"

"Poked it with a stick in the time since you left."

"But they said everything was on lockdown down there, and even then, with that video being played no one onboard would be going DOWN there of their own free will, so t..." Troy spun back to the monitors. "Panther Caroso."

A cheerful ding incited a red dot directly below the station.

"Oh HELL no." Troy said flatly.

"Well I believe my work here is done," Ederick said flatly. "If you ever again find yourself mentally inept I'll keep you on your toes. Hopefully not within the hour."

Everything snapped back into motion.

"..nd if Nightmare were to see you he'd-" Fires spat. She flinched as Troy's hand slapped down on top of her head, making her impish ears wobble in their whiplash.

"Knuckles and Monica are walking into an ambush. I know exactly who's behind it. They are about to get a jagged, toothed weapon in an orifice not of their liking." Troy stuck his keyblade out, ripping open another rift with a flick of his wrist. "Get ready."

* * *

Knuckles and Monica tromped down a rapidly-narrowing corridor, the only light provided being an infrequent line of lifeless red hazard lights along the bottoms of the walls and the pale green strips along the walls representing card scanners. There were more of the latter than the former.

"Their engineers probably spend more time getting in and out of this place than actually doing anything." Knuckles continued to mutter under his breath as he slashed the card through the next cardlock, making the eighth hydraulic gate to part with a crash and a pained screech. He shook his head as all it had done was unveil another heavy metal door less than 50 feet away. "Be ready, Monica. We're low-manning this, there's a possibility we're getting in over our heads here."

"Stop." Monica said sternly.

"What's go... AGH!" Knuckles leapt back, removing his boots from the growing puddle of black ooze seeping through the crevices of the iron gate ahead. "...oh, no... it's already taking full physical form... that means som-"

A violent explosion sent the left half of the next door hurtling through the cramped corridor at them. A flash of yellow light crossed in front of Knuckles as one of his fists slammed head-on into the chunk of metal, deforming it and stopping it dead in the air. He calmly threw the debris down to the ground. Heavy-linked chains draped both his arms, holding a gigantic gold spike over each of his existing fists.

"Well," Monica remained crouching. "you remember you have a keyblade anyways."

"For them to make me use Sphairai... they'd better be giving me a fight worthy of it." Knuckles spat on the ground as he trudged forward into the created opening. He crouched backwards again as a half-dozen impish Shadows poured from the opening, delivering a hook that eviscerated two upon one of the massive barbs. Monica braced herself, firing a bright lance of flame from her bracelet that impaled another.

"They've advanced this far..." Monica wheezed.

"Don't stop! Keep moving!" Knuckles bounded through the opening, tearing more of the sentient ooze off to both sides as he advanced. Monica followed him as they cleaved through the rapidly solidifying Heartless. Chills began to affect her magic's aim as the inky blackness flooding the hallway began to rapidly creep upwards beyond her ankles. With a guttural growl, the flame swirled around her waist, incinerating it all in a small radius as she slogged through both the subtle sneak attacks of the symbiote and the catastrophic messes Knuckles was leaving in his own wake. Bit by bit the corridor began to give way to both sides, and for a mere moment it appeared more breathing room was being created than the Heartless could rapidly occupy.

A larger security gate was visible over the horizon, in a room with low-hanging pipes adorning the ceiling and heavy metal grating comprising the floor. A pale orange mist crawled up from the gaps in the Heartless were the floor was its most visible. Knuckles strode into the room, grimacing as more corporeal forms rose out of the advancing wave of slime. Various subtle movements of his hands swatted away the impish shadows, graduating into heavier blows that dismembered the constructs in mid-air. A massive shark-like head rose out of the mayhem, vomiting up a deafening scream as it launched itself along the floor. Knuckles' Sphairai glowed with an intense light that distorted the air. The Monk crouched and launched himself into a spinning backhand that exploded the apparition on impact, with enough sheer force to blast the flowing Heartless around him into the walls.

"Get out of MY WAY!!" Knuckles suddenly threw his fists toward their opposite sides and crashed their tops together. The fist weapons pulsed with a blinding light once more, erupting with a sonic boom. A shockwave engulfed everything in front of him and screamed onwards with a terrifying velocity, detonating the Heartless, most of the surroundings, and the massive metal gates ahead in one swift motion. The two stormed through into the reactor substation. Monica drug her blade along the ground behind her, creating a passive patch of flame that warded back any Heartless behind.

"Can you pick up anything beyond?"

"Everything goes down from here," Monica pondered. "It must've just broken up into this level of the ship."

"How long ago did this even HAPPEN..." Knuckles turned his attention to the towering cylinder at the center of the two-level chamber as the black cascaded up and around it. Another screaming face erupted from its surface, contorting as it reached out to the two and revealing a gigantic network of viscous tendon-like extensions holding it together. "...well, it's nice to get something more than casual exercise for once. Gimme a light, will you?" Knuckles clashed his fists together with another pulse of golden energy. Monica held her sword up sideways, her expression unchanging as both it and Knuckles' hands burst into white-hot flame.

* * *

A grey, quad-winged Wolfen craft rocketed around the bottom of the station's bottom spire, looking nearly bisected horizontally with nothing but a short, thick pillar of metal holding the two halves together. Its rigid, mechanical crimson paint job had been overwritten with a brilliant red thorned rose.

"Almost at the target point," Panther mumbled to himself. "First two flybys weren't able to get any reasonable scans on the infestation cluster. Readying weapons systems and running last minute diagnostics. With max-charge lasers we'll be able to peel that crud off the bottom of the space platform... and a good chunk of the base itself, but, well, that's just a small price to pay, as they'd say." Panther trailed off into a low chuckle, jerking his flight stick about as he entered a wide, speedy orbit about the bottom central tower.

"Just charging up now?" Leon cackled, swooping down alongside him. "I've been guns akimbo during your whole monologue!"

"However you neanderthals handle things I suppose", Panther grumbled. "Entering all-range mode, set G-Diffusers for evasive efficiency."

"T-minus 20 seconds to third contact!"

"Fire at will."

The giant festering blob on the collision course sprung into action, diffusing and bubbling around within itself. As the Wolfen craft let fly a barrage of bright blue energy bolts, clumps of symbiote detached and propelled themselves out into space. The resulting flak drew the fire, taking the brunt of the damage and exploding harmlessly.

"Is it sentient?..." Panther and Leon screamed by the main structure. "...split up, go in from opposite ends, loop back and take the opposite way. Switch to anti-cruiser spread-heads, there's no way this thing can handle that much fire from multiple directions."

One of the fighters pitched up suddenly, stopping and spinning back to its previous horizontal alignment. The afterburners fired and sent it hurtling back the direction it came. With precision timing, both performed a sweeping turn and aimed themselves at the Heartless. Pieces of the substructure between the Wolfens' 'wings' blew apart with deafening cracks and several dozen small missile-like spikes swarmed outwards at their target. Both craft screeched past each other in the middle, watching the others' projectiles collide and explode individiually. Spears of flame lashed out over each machine as they beat hasty retreats to survey the damage. Between the wisps of dead flame pieces of structural debris floated out.

Panther grimaced as numerous green boxes extrapolated themselves in front of his visor. "...flawless. You getting this, Lee?"

"I don't think I'm getting the same viewpoint." Leon grunted as he furiously tapped the buttons and dials on his.

"There's nothing left to speak-" Panther suddenly jerked his craft to the side as several shards of metal and splotches of symbiote narrowly missed. It wasn't the agony of twisted metal - Panther knew that all too well. The eardrum-crippling scream that had rended his skull was outright alien. Whatever was tearing itself apart was most certainly feeling it.

Troy and Fires lumbered in under the confusion, sitting directly underneath the rapidly-vanishing spire as their suit jets casually self-adjusted to keep them stationary.

"Actually... how could I even start to explain this situation to Auron..." Fires continued to mumble, Troy mentally drowning out her further reflection as he stared upwards at the creasing, twisting Heartless hive. It was a terrible ambience, only reserved for something that could just as easily, for all its chaotic disposition, humbly reach down to devour the two at any given moment.

"Diplomatic team goes to Katina, diplomatic team is crapped on by locals unaffiliated with those that summoned us, locals unaffiliated with those that summoned us make excellent distraction for the chaos they themselves stirred up while we work unimpeded."

"If they're getting beat on in spacecraft that fast though, what chance do we have? We're still in these spacesuits..."

"We don't necessarily need to go faster... just faster than the next guy."

"What's that supposed to m-" Fires shuffled back as Troy pulled his keyblade out... slowly... with both hands. Fires coughed as soon as she realized what he was in the process of doing. He did happen to be drawing his keyblade out of a mysterious light in the air, as he and others did on a routine basis, except in this case a long, thin rocket turbine happened to be grafted around its handle, pointed outwards. "...what are you supposed to be doing?"

"I could replicate and configure any technology I saw, regardless of identifying its inner workings? Is that how Auron put it?" Troy groaned as he pointed the keyblade-turned-cruise-missile upwards, with some creaks of protest coming from his suit's jets. The glare guard on his helmet suddenly clamped down. "He's going to wish he hadn't let that slip so casually. Especially when he announces he's going to take us through another world's military establishment immediately after..."

"But you can't create weap-"

"Only if it's explicitly defined as a weapon..." Troy rapped his hand against the side of the booster. "...that's why I can create a baseball bat, but it'd only get confiscated within Shambhala once I tried to attack Auron with it. If I follow that logic, creating things that Shambhala would be unable to explicitly define as weapons but COULD be, I can take the objects out of its sphere of influence and work with them as I please. If I created their laser-blaster things... or their missiles, or stuff like that, the result would've been different."

"How can you even REASON all of this?!"

Troy turned a stony gaze back on the elaborate device of his creation. "...I feel like I've seen... used it all before. Maybe Ederi-"

"J-just do what you came here to do and let's split."

"Glad we can come to an understanding." Troy spun around, lifting a flap on the side of the rocket and flipping at least a dozen switches upwards in the blink of an eye.

"It's anything but an understanding!!"

The two somersaulted backwards as the rocket exploded to life, belching out a surge of green flame that sent it lancing upwards towards the core of the Heartless hive and its witnesses in the opposite direction.

"Unidentified mass heading towards the target at dumbfire missile speeds..." Leon snarled.

"Shit..." Panther rasped as he returned to tinkering with the visor, his craft wobbling about as it continued to avoid the seemingly random bits of machinery being thrown at it. "Did the station send out its own ships finally?"

"Nuthin' translating to fighters that I can pick out." Leon began another wide bank as suddenly an unearthly scream shook the very space around him. Something of primeval origin hadn't been wounded - it had simply gained enough self-awareness to realize that it was about to occur. The Chronicle left a mild distortion in its muzzle blast as it tore into the surface of the hive, causing it to concave for a split-second before imploding under the force. Its shield orbs began to dissipate and pop one by one its host began to recede into the gaping hole it had bored into the space station.

"That worked." Troy slurred under his breath. "...I MEAN- That worked even better than even I'd guessed!"

* * *

Knuckles somersaulted back to the wall, avoiding another lash of dark energy as it smashed the grating where he once stood. He muddled back into the wall, quickly realizing how little headway he and Monica had made. Safe room to move in the chamber was running out parallel to the two's stamina, and their escape path was becoming increasingly obstructed by the room's fallen pipework - that was, if they had time to escape before the roof's integrity completely failed, which was also rapidly progressing from a distinct possibility. Knuckles and Monica stood on opposite sides of the giant face, which had turned its attention to the latter as they both sidestepped around the room's center column of Heartless.

"This is... just great." Knuckles chuckled. He wiped a congruing mixture of blood and saliva from his lips as he surveyed the backside of the mounted head. "I needed a workout."

"You come up with some of the STUPIDEST things to say in situations like these." Monica flicked her wrist back and forth in an increasingly mechanical motion, her bracelet deflecting the advancing tendrils with small shocks of energy.

"Just keep it at least mildly amused will you?" Knuckles hunched down and lunged across the floor, taking special care to avoid the numerous crags and outright pitfalls that lied in his way. With a feral gnarl he hurled himself through the air at the base of the monstrosity. His fist spikes suddenly doubled in length as he thrust them at the joints underneath, shearing through the wires with the unearthly ring of scything metal. The thunderous scream of the apparition shook the room once more. "GOT IT!!"

Monica felt herself backing into the wall as the lashing tentacles around her suddenly flailed off to opposite sides. She knew that she would likely not have another such opportunity to prepare a concentrated attack. Monica ground her teeth as the bracelet gem burned a bright blue, and her outreaching hand's fingers stretched apart. Another explosion quaked the immediate area as a gigantic bolt of lightning channeled directly into the opposite side of the head, blasting its remaining supports apart. The head's jaw unhinged as its screeching continued. Slowly but surely, it detatched and plunged to the floor as black ooze continued to pour from both it and the countless wounds on the pillar behind it.

The two fell back into what remained of the walls behind them, wheezing.

"No time to rest," Knuckles groaned as he forced himself back onto his feet with an audible creak of his muscles. "We have to pave a way out from where we came, I dunno if this place is going to hold up much longer." Monica's sole confirmation was her following of Knuckles.

She was ready to breathe a sigh of relief until another black spike leapt out from the writhing corpse and impaled her above the ankle. With a shirek Monica tried to carry herself forward with another step, but instead found herself falling facefirst into the floor with an impact that made Knuckles squirm. Knuckles grunted and leapt back to slash apart the tendril, and tore what remained from her leg. Knuckles looked around frantically and went pale at what he saw. Another lance had already slammed through the wall nearby, and another on the far side of the chamber. More and more spikes continued to shoot out and entrench themsleves in the walls seemingly randomly, and it would only be a matter of time before one struck the two's region once more.

"It's spasming!..." Knuckles grunted in shock. Monica huffed back the pain. Knuckles knew that the damage was far from lethal, but it would still stop her from making an exit on her own. "Of all the... places to..." Knuckles positioned himself between Monica and the head as its screams turned to gurgles. Though it continued to thrash about, its solid beams continued their assault, and for every one that Knuckles deflected or cleaved through, another pair barely missed one of the two. Knuckles, for the first time in however long back he could remember, was getting genuinely concerned. The two were in a very compromising position to put it mildly, and devoting an arm to moving Monica away would leave him open to a shaft of symbiote through the back.

Knuckles felt his stance shake again as a metal growl bellowed up from underneath them. Before he could formulate any commentary, the center of the floor was reduced to shrapnel as a searing-white projectile burst through it and bisected the beast in yet another grotesque flowering of black blood. Knuckles continued to shield himself as the screaming vanished into the air, replaced with the clinks and clunks of miniature kernels of metal dropping every few awkward seconds. Lowering his plated fists, he finally got a moment to himself to examine the wreckage. Not one light fixation or piece of level terrain remained, the only object providing light being the burning silhouette of the keyblade lodged in the ceiling. It was the Chronicle, its new engine already dented, deformed and burnt out beyond recognition.

Knuckles let his shoulders loosen. He grumbled under his breath.

* * *

In a dimly-lit room, Auron sat behind a simple metal office desk, slowly drumming its surface with his left hand's fingers. The right palm limply held up his chin. "I'd like to say something to the effect of, 'do you realize what you just did there', but I'm aware that the answer would be fruitless."

"What if I say yes anyways?" Troy answered cheerily.

Auron let the palm slide up his face.

"...no I didn't?"

"No, you did not."

"Well okay, here goes..." Troy tried to relax the best he could. "After that whole bit where Knuckles told me and Fires to go away post media-meltdown, we took ourselves out of the station and realized that the Heartless hive was already active 'cause Panther and Leon were down there screwing around. They wanted to convince the Katina officials to continue using their services for hilariously overblown prices. Anyways, I wasn't content sitting there and I wasn't gonna let Fires be a liability here like she was so afraid of becoming, so we went out to try to fight it from the outside. With some manipulation I was able to jimmy up a rocket engine to fire the Chronicle into the eye of the hive..."

Troy made wide sweeping motions with his arms and failed to create a convincing rocket noise. Auron reached new levels of apathy.

"...because, you know, Panther and Leon were all swooping and diving around this thing, but even at their velocity they weren't able to land a direct hit on it, and its defenses were all tied up with them, so I... so, I did... well, the exact same thing they did, but... just... I got it in its blind spot!"

"Troy." Auron droned.

"With tha... uh yeah?"

"If Knuckles told you to leave, why didn't you?"

"...I didn't want to appear as a liability on my very first mission."

"Well, you did. Interesting how the best intentions turn into anything but." Auron pushed his chair away. He stood and slowly lumbered towards Troy with perfectly silent footsteps, stopping to fall into a crouch in front of the Koopa. "Getting caught on incriminating video was an unfortunate mishap. Perhaps that couldn't have been avoided. Disobeying a superior's orders and continuing action on the sidelines with altruistic hopes, that's punishable but understandable. However... do you remember something Monica told you before you began talks with the Cornerian officials?"

Troy rolled his eyes as he wheezed out the doctrine. "Diplomats first, superheroes second."

Auron rose to his feet slowly enough to make Troy tense up again, as the looming shadow slowly engulfed him in turn. "You fired a rocket-propelled projectile at the Katina space station. That is interpreted by Cornerian military doctrine as a declaration of sector-based war."

"Wha?" Troy threw his arms into the air. "You're telling me this while Panther and his crony are sitting there firing full-tilt on the place, like..."

Troy made wide sweeping motions with his arms and failed to create convincing laser noises. Auron reached new levels of apathy.

"Star Wolf are space pirates. For some of their members, such displays of vulgar power to get their point across are commonplace. You're lucky that Star Wolf was there making so much noise - if individual fighter craft are capable of detecting where missile launches like yours originate from, then it's likely that the station's defense systems itself would as well..." Auron shrugged. "...but of course, neither would be able to detect that it came from a heat signal as small as yours. Typically speaking their equipment is searching for attack craft. As such, what you did would likely be attributed to Panther and Leon instead. In any case, any contracts they had with local Cornerian establishments are likely ending."

"Star Wolf they're called... so I'm off the hook then?"

"Does it look like it?"

"...well, no, I guess not. Where's Knux and Monica?"

"They're residing within their chambers at the moment."

Troy shifted around. "Figure they'd at least visit me after they brought me here... after how long I've been in this room and all."

"They're the ones that suggested the punishment."

"WHAA?!" Troy jerked his arms about. "After all I did for th... well, I guess I didn't actually do a lot for them on purpose, but C'MON!"

Auron moved towards the door, his duster wisping about around him. He twisted the cold metal handle, ushering another statement before he departed. "They do say they are thankful, however. But... keep one thing in mind for your future endeavours..."

"What?"

"The body can be repaired or even replaced. Honor... is much more difficult."

"Are you going to let me go now?"

"Take some time off to think." Auron glanced at Troy's wrist.

Troy grunted in disapproval as the door clicked shut behind Auron. He slumped down onto his bottom, surveying his surroundings. Interestingly the area where he sat was the only carpeted part of the room. Troy's wrists were chained (with rather forgiving slack) to the walls. An electric timer on the left clamp started ticking down from 2:00:00. "Blah." He stared up at Auron's dimmed desk lamp. A short period devoid of self-reflection ensued until Troy turned his attention to the noise of scraping across the floor outside. It paused for a moment before a small metal tray spun underneath the door and slowed to a stop at his feet.

He stared at it briefly before plucking one of the large cookies off of it.

"...e-extra... chocolate." Fires' sheepish voice crept through the crack after it.

Troy chuckled to himself as he took a big bite.


	13. Do Vast Dream of Sentient Sheep?

The chamber seemed to be exactly how he left it.

Within that assumption, Troy included the gaping hole in reality that was quickly sawed into its center. A bright corona flashed in the air brieftly before he put his fist through it. The dimensional wall broke into shards that powdered into the air as they left their near-perpetual rest. Troy calmly walked out, surveying his surroundings. Not a speck of dust remained in the foyer of Toad Town's castle and most of its surfaces gleamed in the moonlight, but the checkered floor was in the first steps of fracturing and was mildly denting inwards in several spots. The fortress had obviously gained a lot of foot traffic that both spurned the need to now clean it on a regular basis, and with great futility, keep the red carpet (and the ground beneath it) leading inwards in serviceable condition.

Troy thrust his chest out and exhaled a growl as he stretched. "I totally fell outside of the time cycle here didn't I... that's what I get for visiting a world with different lunar cycles every couple'a days..." Troy tasted the air while he rubbed his scalp. "Well, I was kinda nappy in the first place, I'll just slip into my old room and waste some time 'til everyone gets up."

Troy trudged through the castle's vacant hallways and chambers, at least halfway expecting to run into a surprised guard or retainer along the way. Strangely, neither seemed to populate the corridors. Along the way he passed through the dining room where long nights of planning were carried out with him, the Marios and Selphie offering what was, at the time, completely improper action plans.

"I wonder where those guys are." Troy sifted through the stacks and stacks of papers scattered along the table. They seemed to run the gamut of symbiote-related concerns - public relations, keyper indoctrination, defense budgeting. Of particular interest was a series of blueprints for the palace, buried under sticky notes highlighting various unintelligible attributes of one of the upstairs chambers. Troy turned the sheet about in his hands for several rotations before he placed it back where he found it. "Come to think of it, this whole room is a mess... I hope Plit's defense isn't getting too swamped."

He forced his stare away from the information long enough to leave the room and ascend one of the fanciful staircases to the third story. Like clockwork he dissected the hallways and steered himself towards the guest bedroom hallway. Hoisting another yawn into the air, he counted the doors down to his. "Just like riding a bike." He jiggled the ornate bronze doorknob. The door opened with the click of well-oiled machinery. As to be expected the door opened into pitch darkness, as the curtains were drawn. Troy grimaced as he fumbled through the darkness, eventually planting his hand down onto the poofy bed. He pried himself out of his shell, a pair of plain boxers flapping into plain view with a FOOMPH not unlike that of a parachute being deployed. He quietly slipped under the covers, adjusting himself with a series of grunts until all that remained outside of the covers was his head.

"...mmgh... mah... forgot how warm this bed was. I dunno why I didn't think one of these into Shambhala before." Troy fidgeted again. "...too warm actually."

His final attempt to roll inwards was enough to cause the blankets opposite him to shift. Troy squinted as light tore into his eyes. A hand had a firm deathgrip on the pullcord of a bedlamp. Another head finally rose from the depths of the blankets, and with a weary sigh, rolled over to face Troy.

Peach let out a shrill scream.

* * *

NSx: CHAptEr 12

ff1bovwelvsdfo36]=nkwe

DO vaSt DrEAm of SentIenT sHEep?

* * *

Random shrieking and the sound of a bedlamp exploding against a wall had been enough to attract the attention of a pair of heavily-armed mushroom guards outside. They stood with their polearms at the ready, behind a tired and mildly irritated Troy. He was seated back in the dining hall now, rubbing the throbbing, burning red hand implant on his face. Peach in her nightgown continued to pace back and forth nearby. She spun to face the three, causing them to jerk backwards and stumble to attention - more out of mortal fear than any royal etiquette.

"TROY!" Peach snarled furiously. "Where the hell have you BEEN? I vaguely remember somewhere in your mission statement of romping with Auron that you were going to be back at some point?

Troy fiddled with his fingers. "Yeah, at some point."

"It's been three and a half months since you walked out that door... do you think you can just... just..." Peach trailed off as she slumped into a seat halfway down the table. "...I'm-I'm sorry. Things are a little stressful around here these days. It's not as whimsic... that's a bad choice of word. It's just... everything in general, things aren't as simple as you and Auron make them seem..."

"That's an understatement." Troy gazed back at the swaying towers of documents.

"I shouldn't antagonize you." Peach rubbed her forehead for a moment before waving her hands at Troy again. "I mean!-that's not what I meant. I just... there's a lot of people here, both in the Mushroom and Koopa kingdoms that are concerned about your whereabouts. I'm sure you, and I, and them, and well, everyone in general would be a lot more comfortable knowing what you're doing out there. Many people still think that you are the ultimate authority as far as what's been going on since Sirius came to us, and, well, I'm sure you still are."

"Well, there's certain details that are classified but I'll try to answer as best I can."

Peach grunted as she hoisted a small lamp and placed it on the edge of the table between the two. With a motion of her now-free arm, the two guards nodded and departed silently from the hall. With Troy and Peach alone, idle chatter turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Troy spent as much time explaining the countless alien lifeforms, bizarre technologies and worldly customs that were either lightyears beyond (or behind) what Plit had to offer as he did his encounters with the Heartless and Vast. Peach leaned forward with wide, now-bloodshot eyes as a bardlike Troy excitedly waved his arms and described them all, finishing with a sweeping description of Shambhala.

"You mean..." Peach tilted her head. "You just THINK of something, and poof, it's there?"

"Pretty much," Troy sat with his crossed legs resting on the table. "I have a second buggy now. Exactly same as the first. It's just sitting there parked in my room. OH! Oh. There's one other thing I forgot." Troy righted himself and shifted himself closer to Peach. "...you'll never believe this. There's this freaky machine that I ran into on my very first mission. It is just WACK."

"Go on." Peach slurred excitedly.

"It's this big-ass hollow metal box, with a tank and pipeline that cycles this weird juice through the back. Apparently, if you keep supplying the pump system with energy, it does this wicked chemical reaction that keeps the inside cool perpetually!" Troy sat up, proudly stating the last. "Where I went they used it to store food!"

"A refrigerator." Peach said flatly.

Troy opened his mouth to speak, but fell silent. "...a what?"

"...Troy, WE have refrigerators. WE use them to store food."

An awkward silence reached out and slapped Troy across the face.

"...well okay then, you have a refrigerator."

"Yeah, yeah, okay then." Peach glanced away, putting her arms up in an attempt to quiet Troy. "...what you were saying about classified information earlier... what does that entail?"

"If I told you it wouldn't be very classified."

"I mean, what do you do in this... Shambhala? You obviously have a reason to leave and visit places across the galaxy. What does the Covenant about the Heartless and Vast?"

"I'm not at liberty to say where Auron ultimately wants to go, but as for our day to day operations... we do what he did when he came here, basically. It's our job to visit advanced or developed worlds and pass on the information gathered by both Organization XIII and the Covenant itself as far as the Heartless and Vast go, and arm them with educations about both them and the keyblades such that they can defend themselves. As some of my more annoying coworkers put it, we're diplomats first and superheroes second."

Peach smirked, stifling back a chuckle. "You sound just like Auron did."

"You think so? Then I'm doing a good job then."

"After listening to everything you've just said, I think..." Peach sighed. "You must be having some spectactular adventures out there."

Troy had already lost his attention, and was instead watching the sun rise through the banquet hall windows as he picked his nose. "I haven't done anything REALLY death-defying, beyond a battle with a space-station-devouring Heartless hive in the Cornerian system after I first joined, it's been Heartless here, Heartless there, gruntwork, information seminars, some more menial Heartless in someone's sludge plant so to speak, the occasional outright false alarm. Ultimately though, I've seen some inspirational things happen. And you know what? I'm not on an endless tour of duty or stranded at the ass-end of the universe either, I'm free to travel as I please when I'm on call. In the end, this is a job I could live with."

Peach stared wistfully into space.

"...is something wrong?"

Peach shook her head. "...no, it's just that you're here, telling me about all these fantastic voyages you've been on..." Peach slowly rose to her feet, striding towards one of the great panes of glass that separated them from the burning sun as it ate its way up through the horizon. "Ever since I was a little girl, I tore apart every book and tome in our great libraries. I wanted real adventure. Though it might sound selfish, when the Heartless and Vast started duking it out on Plit, I was genuinely excited for the first time in my life. THAT was a burning confirmation that there was life out there, that there was something out there worth exploring and it was just waiting for me to reach out and touch. Again when the Marios and Selphie came to us, and once more when I was given the Invincible. But..."

"What?"

Troy felt himself shudder as Peach stared back at him with hollow blue eyes. "Nothing changed. I folded my arms, I grunted and barked orders to those around me, in the end we contained the Heartless and we still do to this day, but personally? I haven't moved an inch. I'm just a bureaucrat, just like I was, just like I'll continue to be."

"Well hey!" Troy stood up. "Why don't you make a big 'ol death squad like Bowser did and run it yourself? That'll get you out of the palace!"

"I can't, Troy..." Peach pivoted away once more. "The Koopa Troop may be okay with putting their #1 in charge on the battlefield, but the retainerhood, and more importantly, the people of the Mushroom Kingdom, they would never let me stay out of sight for too long."

"Bah! You're not #1!... I mean, not THE number one, I... oh hell you know what I mean," Troy slammed his palms down on the table. "Do what you did before, throw on the jeans and t-shirt and be that free-spirited protector of the people that you wanted to be when you first picked up that keyblade! Hey, actually, I'll go as far as talk to Auron, I'm sure that I could put in a good word and maybe you can come on one of those fantastic voyages sometime!"

There was another eerie silence. Peach continued to gaze lifelessly at the ground. She gave an empty snicker as her shoulders bobbed involuntarily. "...that's the problem, Troy. I AM #1."

"Ha!" Troy jumped to his feet, slapping his hands together. "That's the spirit. Now, just lem-" Troy was interrupted by a low, accelerating sob. "...Peach?"

The twos' eyes met again.

"My father's dead."

* * *

It was stereotypically rainy when the funeral was actually held, three days after Troy had made his reappearance. Troy knew the jolly old man from the time that he had spent residing within the castle, bumbling around and taking care of the most menial of political tasks within the Kingdom. His oversized yellow-trimmed burgundy coat (even for his frame) would fly all over the place as he walked. It was a contrast to the ornate night-black mushroom-cap that was always strapped snugly onto his head, dotted with ametrines and topped with a ring of polished gold trim. In retrospect, it had actually been Peach that worked with Auron (for a while, Sirius) the closest. Making the necessary adjustments to the Kingdom's budget and manpower allocations as far as the whole symbiote business was concerned had been no easy task. At the same time though, the king had diligently handled everything else. It was as if he had wanted her to take apprenticeship at his side - to be his heir - and the Heartless, Vast, Heihachi and Illidan... they were merely the best inconvenience he could have asked for as far as maturing the princess.

A conglomerate of 200-strong stood a mile away from the castle in a cemetery that was regularly shielded from public eyes by a thick grove, such that even Wooster didn't know it had existed.

"The liege perished six days before your arrival," Wooster whispered to Troy. The two were sandwiched in the middle of the crowd. In Troy's case he was up to his breast in mushroom folk, but Wooster was nose-deep. "Confirmed to be cardiac-based natural causes in relation to old age. It was still quite out of the blue however."

Troy's head wavered. "Ugh... I'm not going to try to seek out Peach in this situation, she's probably at her breaking point here and I'm not quite a master of sensitive speech."

"I believed you were a master of inspiration, as apparently everyone else in the Mushroom and Koopa media touts you?"

"This is different." Troy said with a coldness that made even Wooster shrink back. "...this is different."

"I will avoid bringing that up in the future."

"Appreciate it." Troy mumbled emotionlessly.

Time came and went.

"Troy?" Troy's attention turned to the voice in the crowd. Mario, Luigi and Selphie sorted themselves out of the crowd as it began to disperse and last rites were being read. The former were in black and white dress clothes and Selphie was buried in a black gown and veil. Troy realized why he'd barely recognized the voice - Selphie's perpetually chipper attitude had been gutted and she was obviously tilting towards melancholy as she spoke. Selphie half-smiled as she fruitlessly tried to wipe moisture off her dress. "...not quite the grand welcome we were hoping for, huh?"

"I'm sorry for everyone's loss," Troy tried to avoid eye contact with the three. "I was intending on hanging around for a bit, but... it would be unbelievably awkward for you and I. I spent all last night saying things to Peach that were especially insensitive, given that I didn't know about what had happened until she poured out to me. Either way, it's good to see you all again, hopefully the next time we meet it'll be under better circumstances."

"I understand our pensiveness as far as talking about Peach," Wooster muttered under his breath. "But the fact of the matter is, we DO have more than one crisis on our hands."

* * *

The four retreated to the banquet hall, all seated near the head. The piles of papers were all stacked neatly against the windows, which was the only thing protecting them as the rain outside beat harder and harder against the panes of streak-free glass.

"Just like old times." Troy mumbled. He turned his gaze to the head chair where Peach once sat during their brainstorming sessions. It was now occupied by Wooster.

"Troy, Selphie... Luigi, Mario, as head retainer of the Toadstool family I would like to voice my concerns about the long-term impact of the king's death."

"You mean you want our help?" Troy sighed.

Wooster shook his head sadly. "I would have said so if I had any certainty that you four carried the solution. The fact of the matter is this - currently the Mushroom Kingdom in its entirety is without a monarch. The Mushroom Kingdom is - or was, depending on your outlook - a diplomatic monarchy. The government could, in theory, function indeterminately like this. At the same time however, it is mandatory that the nation have a figurehead to act as an icon of solidarity. Otherwise... the Mushroom Kingdom would eventually be perceived as weak from within. The keyper movement could likely slow down... in the worst case scenario, we'd be subject to a potential coup d'etat."

"After all this work..." Mario twirled his moustache. "It'd be a real spanner in the sewer if either the Koopa or Birabuto kingdoms turned on us."

"Are you people serious?" Troy coughed. "Are you this insecure with the Koopa and Birabuto kingdoms? What's the point of putting them at the top of the list?"

Luigi sat slumped over the table. "Troy's sorta right, bro... you, I, Auron, Nightmare, all those clowns that kept rushing us for the Chronicle. I think we oughta be more concerned about those guys accidently dismantling things. Hey, don't take this as the gospel truth, but there could even be someone plotting from within. I mean, Bowser had to deal with one of those creeps a few months ago right?"

"Who's got that kinda power?" Selphie huffed.

"Calm down, please, calm down," Wooster waved his arms about as the others quickly silenced. "It wasn't my intent to set any of you off with that comment. Perhaps I'm worrying about this too much. The fact of the matter is, well, we do have a heir to the throne. The problem is, it's his only blood connection - Peach. I envisioned Peach eventually rising to fill that tier of power, but being forced into it so early and suddenly, especially without warning from the king to her... she has far too little experience in the matter and the Kingdom's loss has left her mentally unstable for the time being. That considered, the more we try to force the responsibility upon her, the worse it will be both for her and the monarchy."

"What about Daisy?" Troy interjected.

"She's got her OWN kingdom to run, Troy." Selphie grumbled.

"Doesn't Peach have any other relatives?"

"That was the first route I examined," Wooster passed Troy another ragged parchment. "Her mother abandoned the Mushroom Kingdom several months into Princess Toadstool's childhood according to royal records. To be honest I had never even realized it until I investigated the archives myself. Beyond that, nothing on record."

Troy gingerly took the sheet from Wooster's hand. It was desecrated beyond repair, with only the bleeding ink that described her most basic of physical attributes intact above the clay royal seal of the Mushroom Kingdom. There had once been a picture inserted into several indentations in the paper, but it had smudged dry of ink and been gnawed apart by decay and vermin long ago. Troy stared distastefully at the blob that represented half of a head as he returned it to Wooster. "How long has this kingdom been going and this is the only proof of existence you have of a royal family member?"

"I've only worked here for 12 years. If you must ask it was hard work and diligence that got me to head retainer within that time frame, but that is besides the point. Do not take this as the unmarred truth obviously, but there is an old urban legend that the king was much more physically fit at one point, and a marital conflict over his appearance caused her to flee the palace with some of the most valuable items from the treasury. In addition, she removed or otherwise damaged all of her family registration and identification kept by the palace. This is the last document existing of its type. The king kept it in a small vault in his bedroom. He may or may not have done unsavory things with the photo."

"Well that doesn't do us any good," Troy threw his arms up in disgust. "As much as my interest peaked there, if she'd be the kind to dump Peach here and loot the place of all things then she'd do no good for anyone as a ruler."

"This is going nowhere." Mario said dully.

"This isn't a problem that will be solved merely by us five's presumptions and arguments," Wooster slowly rose to his feet with his hands at the table, leaning forward. "Again, Troy, I apologize again for what you had to walk into here... but while you remain here, please make yourself at home. Undoubtedly you four have a lot of catching up to do. I'll be with the other retainers caring to and cleaning up after the funeral service. Please don't hesitate to come to me if you have any concerns." Wooster nodded to the left and right, and made his way away from the table.

"Oh, one more thing," Troy blurted. "Why is Peach sleeping in my bed?"

Mario visibly choked on his saliva. Luigi gave his back several solid slaps.

"She abandoned her room a couple days after the incident. She states that she isn't alone and hears voices when she tries to sleep in her own bed."

"Mm?" Troy hummed.

Wooster shook his head. "That's all I've heard. If you wish to investigate I'll provide you the master key, but you didn't hear that from me."

* * *

After receiving confirmation that Peach had retired to her room for the night, the remaining four navigated back through the castle and ascended into the guest bedroom hall. The corridor was pitch black, pierced only by a penlight Troy held to the side of his head as he lead the queue. The group crept past what used to be Troy's room and made their way to the intersection up ahead, which turned both ways into the royal quarters.

"You sure we should be doing this?" Luigi tried to pass a murmur up the line. "I know Wooster gave us the go-ahead, but something about this doesn't seem totally right..."

"Well, yeah, that's the whole point," Troy mumbled back. "Something about this doesn't seem totally right? All the more reason to stick our snouts into it." The group slowed to a halt and pivoted to the right. A simply-built door sat on the left at the end of the T-shaped hall with a small window perpendicular to it, creating a long shaft of moonlight that lit the rest of the way. The door in front of them, on the other hand, carried no defining characteristics. Troy waited for a reaction from the other three. With a nod of approval, Troy moved forward and jammed the key into the doorknob's slot. It swiveled with a crisp click, beckoning Troy's hand to it. He planted it firmly on the bulb of brass, and with a deep breath, turned it. It jiggled lifelessly in his hand. "...eh? Is this broken? I wonder what ha-"

Troy growled to himself, realizing what was happening. He spun around, finding Ederick where his companions once stood. "I can't let you open that door, Troy."

"Oh really, never considered you to be the sensitive type," Troy sneered. "Will you stop it with your spook show here and find a synapse of mine to hide in while I take care of personal business?" Troy lurched back as Ederick leapt forward and snapped up Troy's wrist in a deathgrip. "The hell?! I said, go AWAY!!" Troy quickly wrested back control of his arm, shoving Ederick into the wall.

"You can't do that!!" Ederick bellowed, jumping back forward.

"Troy!" Selphie squeaked.

Troy shook in place for a moment. Shaking the cobwebs from his head, he looked around in confusion. Ederick was gone. Selphie, Mario and Luigi were giving him concerned stares.

"You alright dude?" Mario said quizzically. "You were just sitting there shaking the doorknob for 10 seconds solid."

"Huh? I, uh-whm..." Troy blinked, giving his head one final lash. "...sorry, I've had like 5 hours of sleep since I got here."

"We didn't have to do this tonight you know." Selphie whispered.

Troy jerked the handle once more in response and it let out a dull clunk. The door swung open and the group charged through as their concern for subtlety washed away. Once more however, they all lurched to a halt as Troy and Luigi drew their keyblades in one smooth, lightning-fast motion. The princess's room had downright spartan compared to what the four expected - a traditional pillowy royal bed with its own ceiling and cloth drapes, a tall dresser, and a simple desk and chair on the opposite wall surrounded by stacks of books and tomes. That was not what caught the attention of the invaders, however. Rather, a large orb hovered in the air in front of the room's patio access, a couple of feet in diameter and pulsing with a purple light that lit the room like day. The patio door itself was wide open and a cool breeze poured in that made the curtains shift about eerily in the background.

"T-that's unreal." Troy gaped.

"What?" Mario found himself shouting back. "What is it?"

Troy's arms weakened and he found the Chronicle slumping to his sides. "...that's the most pure deposit of Vast I've laid my eyes on."

"Are you associates of Princess Toadstool?" a neutral, butler-like voice said firmly.

The gaggle jumped in surprise, immediately turning to each other to determine where the voice had come from. Seeing no other possible explanation for it, they all turned their frightened stares back to the sphere.

"Are you associates of Princess Toadstool?" the voice repeated monotonously.

Troy took a deep breath before replying. "Did you say that?"

"Are you associates of Princess Toadstool?" the hollow voice asked a third time.

"Y-yes, we are associates of Princess Toadstool."

"Very well," the voice droned. "I will believe you. You did possess the master key, so I assume you to be affiliated with this establishment. Please, lower your keyblades. I am not here to harm anyone. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourselves?"

"Troy."

"Selphie." Selphie spoke in a way that purged her sudden fear.

"Mario."

"Luigi."

"Thank you. I am afraid I do not possess a name as Nobodies and those with hearts often attribute to one another, so for future reference you may entitle me as you please. Once you establish amongst yourselves a standard of communication I will continue."

"Bob." Selphie blurted. Mario slapped his hand over top of her mouth.

"Bob. I will keep that nomenclature on file for my stay here," Bob hummed. "Now, you are all visibly confused and/or frightened at my presence, and as I am in the presence of keypers, you have likely had unsavory contact with what you would term 'primal' Vast. Again I would like to affirm you all that I am not here to inflict any harm on the Nobodies of this world, and I hope to dispel any lingering concerns by answering any questions you might have."

"Why'd you go and do that?" Mario hissed.

Selphie shrugged. "It's cute."

"I'm assuming you're that haunting voice that made Peach sleep in my bed." Troy said dully.

"Do you just like saying that Peach slept in your bed?" Mario grumbled.

"I'm taking those sheets with me when I'm done." Troy shot back. "Anyways, uh, Bob... can I ask what's making you hang out in Peach's room? She might be freaked out by your presence, but the reason we're all concerned is that we've been told that the Vast overwrites Nobodies with new hearts when they come in contact with each other. This supposedly craps all over any consciousness, memory, etc. that the Nobody had in the process of resetting them. This isn't the greatest sensation from what I understand."

"...hmm, troublesome," Bob's tone lowered. "As I mentioned earlier, this is a primitive mechanism of primal symbiotic Vast, and it is carrying out its most basic function, which is as you described, the creation and dispensing of hearts."

"I've ran into a primal Nobody before, and it was trying to assimilate me into its status as a white blob of Nobody... ness, so this is sort of the same thing?"

"That would be correct. It wished to create a hive mind with you so to speak. That is what Nobodies are - the manifestation of the mind. The Vast was attempting to do the same by adding a heart to you."

"And you're just approving this?" Troy snorted.

"No. I am a heightened evolution of Vast, just as you and the inhabitants of the worlds around you are evolved Nobodies with free will and physical bodies to call your own. I carry out my mission with prudence, in the same way that you live your lives beyond the barbaric demands of a primal Nobody. I do provide hearts, but only to augment existing Nobodies that possess the integrity and willpower to accommodate them - that is, to create hearts that integrate themselves with the existing Nobody to upgrade it to the point of being able to experience the utter extremes of emotion. That being said, I am in a better position to explain my presence here today. I believe that this Peach you speak of is on the verge of being able to comprehend true sadness and happiness. A heart is the final step in the matter. She is very likely able to be repaired."

_Did Ederick not want me to hear this?_ Troy's mind ticked and his chest beat from within. "Why Peach?"

"This Peach has recently experienced an event that created an explosion of these borderline emotions... but not simply one; sadness, loss, regret, inner contemplation, but most importantly despair. She did not simply express an impact from it, but a chain reaction of emotions that lead me to believe that she is reflecting upon this and the impact this has on all facets of her existence. This is the path to true sadness."

Troy's keyblade flashed out. "Peach lost a loved one! So what are you trying to do, amplify all this?! If that's what having a heart is then I don't want any part of it!"

"Calm down, Troy!" Luigi jerked Troy back by his free arm.

"I understand your stance, Troy," Bob murmured. "It is the initial response of the uneducated if an instance of true sadness arises. As sentient beings we wish to enjoy our lives unimpeded, and will fight back against instances or entities that threaten it. What Peach is experiencing, however, is not a simple loss of an enjoyed facet of life. It is beginning to shake her to the core - all her personal traits, life decisions, misplaced statements... everything. She will remain unstable unless she is able to plumb the depths of true sadness and eventually place herself above it. That is what she requires a heart for. Should she overcome the true sadness, she will become a better person for it, and her spiritual resilience will increase exponentially. She will love life, and she will relish the other things surrounding her. As a heart is required to truly see despair and sorrow in things, it will also grant you this boundless joy - true happiness. The awakening can occur in the other direction of course, with an explosion of positive emotion, but both extremes are ultimately unavoidable."

Troy stumbled backwards. "...this... this is a lot to digest. I still don't understand, though... why Peach? People live and die all the time, what brought you here?"

"It is as I said," Bob replied. "Her regret is not simply losing a desired object or friend, it is affecting her perception of herself and everything she has done."

Selphie raised her hand. "I think I kinda understand."

"You do?" Troy spun around.

"Welllllll, Peach's father died, and that would be enough to make anyone sad. But he died with Peach not anywhere near proper leadership of the Kingdom. She's probably freaking out now, not only regretting her lack of connection with her dad, but also wracked with guilt that she presumably never made her dad proud in a tangible way, shape or form - which means that, like Bob says, she's grilling herself on everything she's done so far, all the choices she's made regarding her involvement in her royal lineage and whatever. This 'true sadness' is the center of the matter where she's gotta face up to herself and decide where to go and what to do about it, or otherwise find the truth."

"That is correct." Bob replied.

Troy shook his head. "How did you even get that... well, anyways, Bob. Let's say we let you have your way and and you do your business with Peach. What'll happen? Give me the straight facts."

"Her depression will either heighten drastically, or she will begin to comprehend the true gravity of the situation and rise up to combat it. I cannot provide a guarantee as to what will happen. Everything will be up to her willpower... and her friends'. That she is able to properly control and wield a keyblade, that does say something about her character."

"This isn't a decision we can make. Not without Peach's consent."

"What are we supposed to tell her though?" Mario sighed. "That we're going to give her some happy/sad drugs, and that we don't know which way it'll go? And you know the origin of this whole situation anyways, she's already scared of this thing, hanging around and whispering into her ear when she's sleeping and whatnot."

"A whole new set of ethical problems," Troy said wistfully. "I don't think we're going to solve this puzzle off the bat either. Let's all just take a step back and meet tomorrow so we can talk about this some more. I'm gonna chat with Selphie for a bit before I find somewhere to pass out, bros, can we have some privacy? We're not doing anything behind your backs regarding Peach, don't worry."

"That's probably the best thing we can do right now," Luigi yawned. "We all need to do some ruminatin'. We'll catch up with you in the morning, Troy. Don't do anything we wouldn't."

* * *

The throne room doors slowly creaked open, being propelled slowly but surely by Peach's arms. The process seemed like an eternity to her, and her arms became progressively sore as the simple action carried out. Finally the giant gate's momentum was sufficient for her to let go. The painful squeal of its unusually-decrepit hinges slow disappeared into the air long after the doors stopped moving. She increased her stride forward as the sight of her flabby father lazing about on the throne returned the vigor to her bones. "...oh, dad... it's been a while since I last saw you. Are you alright? Maybe I can mix you up one of your favorite shakes? Or maybe you wanna check in with the retainers... I can go find Wooster and get an update, set up a meeting; if it's about the Koopahari sludge shipment I can probably get a hold of Bowser, I imag-"

The king weakly shook his head. "That won't do at all."

"What will, then?" Peach beamed. "What is it that you desire? I'll be behind you one hundred percent."

A cold, calculated chuckle was the response. "That's a lie."

"Ge-hehh?!"

What Peach once envisioned as a flabby arm snapped a tall, empty glass from the armrest of the chair and hurled it at her. It was not a mere throw, rather the goblet turned into a missile that skimmed her head by mere inches. It impacted against the side of the opened chamber door, exploding into tiny shards with a resonating, migraine-inducing ring that sent Peach to her knees. She emitted several grunts of agony as she clasped her ears shut the best she could. As she writhed, she paid little attention to the stumpy figure removing itself from its seat on the far side of the room and slowly lumbering towards her. A hand shot out and clasped itself firmly around a clump of her hair, dragging her up limply onto her toes with a shriek.

Peach looked up, biting her lip as she stared into her father's eyes - a father that had inexplicably doubled in height during its transformation into a strengthened, masculine form that stared at her with a darkened, contoured face of disgust. Any examination was put on hold as she found herself being violently jolted along with his resuming speech.

The mutated king's voice slowly began to settle into a deep reverb as he spoke. "...I thought I was doing a good thing, dear. I gave you freedom in your life, I raised you, pampered you, taught you how to live to the best yet at the same time rise up to responsibility when people around you were in danger... when the keypers arrived, for a while I thought everything had fallen into place as you leapt into action. At the same time hower, you harbored a desire to abandon them all for your own selfish desires, to gallivant across the cosmos and merely explore like some deprived child at a new playground. What about your old friends? Your caretakers? Your subjects?!" the voice reached a powerful rumble that shook the whole room. "WHAT ABOUT ME?!?"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry s-s-sorry!!" Peach tried to shake herself free with little luck. Her bawling heightened in pitch, reverse of what she was getting bombarded by, until it was illegible to even herself. Finally the vice-like grip on her hair vanished and she crashed to the ground, no longer able to remain upright. The tears kept coming as the shifting beast over her continued to loom.

"YOU ARE A WASTE!!!"

"GAHHKKK-" Peach lurched upwards from a lying-down position with nearly enough force to throw herself over the footboard of the bed. She looked around frantically as her lungs sucked air and expelled it with painful force. Peach found herself back in her darkened guest bedroom, with only a faint sliver of moonlight weaving between the closed curtains letting her piece her orientation together. She clutched her heart as her breathing began to slow, and eventually collapsed back into the mattress with shivers taking over her body. Feeling the nightmare begin to subside, she rolled her head over to find Wooster kneeling down at the bedside. "...Woos-" her first slur was interrupted by a cough.

"Your usual snoring turned into yelling," Wooster said sadly. "I got in here and you were spasming. I deeply apologize for forcing myself upon you in this candid state, but-"

"...it's okay." Peach groaned. She began to relax into her pillow once more, but suddenly jerked her head back up. She lifted up the covers, making sure Wooster wasn't within eyeshot of the gap, and collapsed again in embarrassed disgust.

"You soiled yourself. Quite explosively, I might add. Are you still in your gown?"

"...yes." Peach's face glowed red as it slowly sunk under the covers.

"I'll help you over to another guest bedroom for the rest of the night. I will clean up here for tomorrow." Wooster grunted under the weight of the taller human, but eventually he propped her up and they began to waddle out of the room and down the hall.

"...Wooster."

"Yes?"

"...I'm sorry. For everything."

"Nothing you do right now is inexcusable, your highness."

Peach resumed her frown, but stabilized.

* * *

The hours ticked by, and the sun would eventually rise and pass over the Kingdom once more. Troy once more got to experience royal dining. Selphie, Mario and Luigi were already sick of it at this point. That aside, it was difficult for any of them to actually taste anything as their minds raced over both Peach and Bob's words. Wooster was filling out retainer-based documents further down the banquet table as usual.

"You said she had a nightmare?" Selphie finally coughed out.

"I arranged a medical examination for this morning," Wooster tried his hardest to maintain a monotone expression. "Peach did have a nightmare, but she also had a bout of night terror that started partway through. She's extremely shaken up... she's just fine physically, but she's in an even more reclusive state."

Troy fidgeted with his fingers.

"Hey." Mario whispered to Selphie.

"What's up?"

"I know that we've been in an uncomfortable position for a while now, but I don't think we should let Troy and Peach get eye contact with each other. I think if any of us actually saw her current state, Troy would be the first to snap and either say something awkward, or worse, get Bob to trigger this true sadness crap. We still don't know what result that would have with Peach."

"I get what you mean," Selphie sighed dejectedly. "At the same time though, what are WE doing? Peach is just in some barren room of the castle drying her eyes. We can't just leave her like that forever."

"What do you suggest?"

"If she's worried about her father's disapproval, then we just gotta..." Selphie leant in further to Mario's ear.

"...you sure about that? Could we even get away with something like that? I mean, the whole incident was-" he and Selphie quickly straightened themselves with their chairs clattering as they detected Troy's evil eye.

"Mario." Troy said flatly, maintaining a stony stare.

"...yes?"

"You gonna eat that?" Troy gestured with a fork at the pair of raspberry-adorned pancakes in front of Mario. Mario rolled his eyes and pushed the plate towards Troy, granting him a few more seconds of grace.

"He doesn't look too concerned about it." Mario muttered under his breath at Selphie.

"If he weren't feeling anything he would have just taken the pancakes." Selphie chuckled.

"True."

As Troy noisily scarfed down the remaining pancakes, the chamber doors swung limply open again. A pair of blue-dotted mushroom retainers marched to the empty front of the desk and stood at attention. Wooster set down his pen and looked to the two. "Yes?"

"Head retainer, there is a man at the front gates requesting Troy's presence immediately. He will not reveal his concerns to us."

Troy pushed himself up from the table with the clatter of cutlery. "Auron said he was going to leave me alone for a bit... I'd better step out for a bit and see what he wants. Can't he tell from looking at things that we have a situation on our hands..." Troy toppled his chair as he forced himself away from it, storming off between the two messenger retainers. With a grunt he slammed both doors behind him. More noises of disapproval would be generated on top of that he began to make his way through the sunlit hallways to the main door. He marched on through to the castle's lobby, slowing as he noticed an abnormal lack of traffic coursing through it. "...weird, the retainers are usually trying to buff and polish every square inch of this place and failing miserably. I wonder wh-"

Troy lurched to a halt as he set foot in the room proper. He shook his head, clearing a sudden congestion in his sinuses. "...whoa, that's weird... it's like this room's got a totally different air pressure than the rest of the castle. When I get outside I-" Troy's wind was suddenly knocked out of him as a shockwave blasted him from behind. The force launched him into the wall above the main entrance, deforming it with a sickening crunch before letting Troy fall back to the floor. Troy shuddered as he climbed back onto all fours, spitting out paint chips. "What... t-the HELL?!" Troy squawked again as he felt himself getting moved upwards onto his feet against his will. But he wasn't merely getting pulled around by the mysterious force - his limbs were being pushed into place and kept still with inward-pressing force. Grunting and trying to resist the phenomenon, he watched as a tall, scraggy figure moved forward from behind the left door of the inner sanctum, flashing an unearthly grin to his prey.

"WELL!" Lantz threw his arms up with a scoff. "That wasn't so hard. Belphegor tried to do things the intellectual way, but what do I see," Lantz stabbed a bony finger at Troy. "It turns out you can't even watch your back long enough to avoid getting jumped from behind an OPEN door! You're not very good at this."

"Who the hell are you?" Troy snarled. "And what the crap is a Belphegger?"

Lantz slouched back, giving his chin an exaggerated rub. His arrogant drawl turned into a sarcastic sing-song. "From what I hear it was a tourist in this parts not too long ago. Everyone gave it a friendly moniker of Sirius. Fits the thing, it's always got to overblow all its hair-brained when-in-Rome schemes. I mean, as far as getting the Chronicle it never got as far as punching you in the gut, or any of its cronies for that matter, so that's 1 me 0 Bel!" Lantz threw his head and let out a crazed guffaw. "HAHAHAHAH!! HAHA!! Wow! See, simple is good!"

"Nepenthes!!" Troy scowled.

Lantz flapped his finger at Troy. "See, there's another thing. When you take too long doing these sorts of things your concentration and planning starts to conflict with itself and things start to slip. I wish Belphegor wouldn't let its gums flap like that and say things like 'this is the secret organization I'm part of durr hurr' but what can I do about it?"

Troy grimaced. "You have a lot of guts, coming back for the Chronicle after this length of time. In minutes, if not seconds, when someone sees what's going on here, every registered keyper of the Kingdom is going to swarm down like flies onto the turd that you are."

"Well, see Troy, if I may call you that, that's not going to happen," Lantz tilted his shades. "'cause I'm Lantz the Pusher. I push around whatever the hell I see fit, whether that's your head up your ass, or the air inwards in a given radius to simulate dense physical walls, and most visible light back the way it came to simulate diffusion so no one can tell what's going on. They'll certainly not want to walk through if they value their lives any, but figuring out what's actually goin' on is beyond the scope of their wee deformed fungus heads."

"That's what happened to my head..." Troy grumbled to himself. "And why I didn't see anyone. He made an entrance for me and I walked right into it."

"Well, let's get down to business. You summon the Chronicle and drop it, say, right here. Then I won't pulverize you. Actually I'll probably pulverize you anyways but you'll have a fleeting moment where you believe mercy is coming. Whoops, spoiled it. Heh, when Belphegor got back to us all it could do was ramble on and on about how you were some kinda evolved reincarnation of some fairy-tale hero."

"Ederick." Troy spat.

Time flashed to a colorless halt. Ederick hovered in the air alongside Troy, his fists being the only part clenched still while he shook in rage. "Fairy tale?! This bastard doesn't know a fucking inkling of what the Chronicle could do! I'll carve every last drop of blood out of him before he gets the first syllable of whatever half-assed insult he-"

"Don't pull the crap you did at Giygas," Troy growled back. "You heard what he said! There could be people streaming through this room that you could be cleaving through left and right, and you wouldn't know the difference 'til the end!"

"So what's YOUR bright idea?" Ederick snapped. A bright white gap in space appeared in front of where Troy hung, dropping the Chronicle to the ground. Ederick's eyes went wide in shock as the weapon clattered to a stop on the floor and Lantz jogged over. His ragged leather boot slipped into the hilt, a jerk of his knee effortlessly flipping it into the air. He swiped it back to himself, snorting as he chuckled.

"There you go sir, no huss no fuss," Troy said calmly. "Now are you going to put me down?"

"...WHAT THE HELL?!" Ederick shrieked. ARE YOU INSANE?!"

"Nice," Lantz turned the weapon about in his hands, trying to force a gleam off it. "To tell you the truth I still can't tell what the leader thinks is so great about this thing, but whatever gets me in his favor I guess. As for you... I was at least expecting some kinda fight, any little shred of trouble out of you. But you really ARE a pathetic little reptile. Just die." Lantz raised his opposite hand up, thrusting out his palm at Troy.

"Well you can tell Belphegor this." Troy smirked.

Lantz let his arm waver. "Hm-GRAAAGGHH!!!" Lantz reeled forwards as a dozen six-inch-long spikes sprung out from around the hilt of the keyblade, impaling through various regions of Lantz's closed fist and keeping it locked in place. His face twisted in rage as he bared his jagged canines at Troy. "You little BITCH!!" Lantz tried his best to shirk the burning pain as Troy dropped back down onto his feet.

"I work for a higher power now, and I've got... a tad bit more experience under my belt. Also I'm a lil' less squeamish in general and I'm not afraid to Shambhala-up contraptions with the resources I have if it means defending myself and this blade to the bitter end," Troy flicked out his wrist again, calling forth the true Chronicle from the same gap in reality. "Now get talking. Who are the Nepenthes? Who do you work for? And I wouldn't really want to try anything with that stuck through your hand either..."

"What are you ta..." Lantz looked down to the keyblade. It was emitting a resonating, low-pitched hum that seemed to shake the prop keyblade at an agonizing frequency. That was before a small flap on the center of the shaft slid up to reveal a bright red light. Before Lantz could react, the device exploded with arcing electricity that consumed him. Troy gazed on grimly, seeming to outright ignore the blinding light. As the dust settled and the room returned to a regular luminescence, Lantz could be seen breathing in rasps as he clutched his burnt, bleeding forearm. Troy looked about, feeling Lantz's field of distortion subside. All that actually occupied the lobby was a sole retainer by the front door clutching a greasy bag of take-out in one hand and a soda that he sipped from in the other. He stared at Troy with a blank expression on his face. Troy tilted his head towards the door and the visitor slowly backed back out.

"Pay attention to me you cocky little freak!!" Lantz was already back on stable feet, hurling himself at Troy in a feral charge. Troy barely evaded his outstreched palm, not paying attention to his wounded arm as it swept in underneath in a low hook. Troy yelped as he quickly vaulted up and threw his legs out to both sides. The air shrieked as the unfocused blast of energy tore a random path ahead of the two, diving down and shredding a swaying path through the floor paneling. Troy latched onto Lantz's wrists as he came down, pulling hard on them and hurling himself downwards between the brawler's legs. As Troy slid across the floor a glint of light flashed in the air, attached to Troy's fist. He gave it a yard as he stopped, and a string of metal yanked on the hilt of the fake Chronicle and slammed the already unsteady Lantz's face into the floor.

Lantz let out another bellow as he forced himself up onto a knee. He tore the hidden cord back towards him, causing it to snap at a point close to Troy. In one swift motion he spun around and whipped it back towards Troy in a flash of steel, lashing him viciously across the face. Troy fell backwards as a spray of blood leapt from the wound, and found himself slipping onto his back. Clutching the cut that pathed across his snout, close enough to his eyes to hamper his vision, he growled in pain as Lantz limped towards him. Lantz's good arm reared back and thrust forward, exploding the ground once more and sending Troy crashing into the wall again.

Lantz chuckled to himself, almost seeming to have embraced his mutilated hand. "Hey now, that was pretty good. That whole bit with the trap, no, the trap that gave me a greivous and disgustingly bloody injury to my BAD hand. You're almost as much a douchebag as me!" Lantz crouched down next to Troy, close enough to breathe on him as he spoke. "ALMOST." He cackled to himself again as he knelt down. Raising his undamaged fist in the air, a visible maelstrom of air slowly began to solidify itself into a drill shape. The weapon lancing at his face was the last thing Troy saw before his eye clamped down from the pain.


	14. Covenant Report: Princess Toadstool

**_"To unpathed waters, undreamed shores."  
- William Shakepeare_**

Peach stood in the throne room of the castle, the palace, Toad Town, the Mushroom Kingdom in its entirety, finding her legs locked down upon the site of her nightmare. None of the typical regal chatter occupied the room, echoing and bouncing back from all surfaces, nor did the sizeable queue of retainers waiting to carry out the king's more strenuous commands or the gaggles of other faithful servants spread throughout the enormous chamber talking amongst themselves. There were sunbeams from the towering windows torching the room, a fat red carpet, and the hauntingly empty throne itself, at this point more worn than extravagant.

She finally tore her stare away from the floor, finding her stare solidifying upon a new uncomfortable location straight ahead. "...you're right. You're exactly right. It's something I never, ever wanted to have to tell myself, but... what I think of myself, where I want to see myself, it's a selfish desire. I am the next heir to the throne of the Mushroom Kingdom, just as you told me when I was young, when I reached adolescence, and as you continue to tell me now. Turning my back on my station would be a betrayal to all those that believe in the crown to protect them, to ensure that they are able to live peaceful, meaningful, productive lives. That I always wanted to be a pioneer, to explore and learn about those things that mystified me in my youth? I should be content that I have witnessed events that will continue to spurn those hopes in generations to come, possibly others in MY generation, and that I'll continue to play accomplice to those that dive those depths for the good of all of us. Troy, Auron... Sirius... I hope that you'll be able to police the multiverse competently, for all our sake. Mario, Luigi, selphie... you'll find your way home, I'm sure of it. We all have the drive to help each other."

Peach eyed the expensive chair for a moment, folding her arms, tilting her head, and otherwise examining every square inch of its polished wood and pillowy fabric. Finally she ascended the stairs, spun and plopped down in the seat of power. She slumped down in it and let herself sink in. Her fingers started to methodically drum the armrests as she gazed about the room, to the door, out the windows - at the same time patiently and desperately waiting for something to happen.

A wistful smirk grew on her face. A small pulse of power rose up within her as she realized what she'd just done. Peach had ascended the throne, and could seize power of the entire kingdom with as little as a statement. What everyone else eagerly waited for was, to her, a cruel usurp. She carried command of the entire retainerhood and could send them out to do her dirty work - not that she didn't previously from time to time, but she had kept mostly to herself and didn't wish to take too extreme advantage of the castle workforce that she grew up with as a friend. An image of Wooster fetching her drinks made her shudder.

All these concerns and more flooded her mind. She thought about breaking down again then and there, but she fought it back. Her mind refused to stop working however, and a migraine did begin to set in. It didn't particularly help that the seat itself was pretty uncomfortable and the cushion itself was awfully stiff.

...stiff?

Peach pushed herself out of the seat and knelt down to examine the cushion. There weren't any detectable flaws in the seat cushion - if there were her father would have picked them up much faster than her. He did spend a good portion of his days on top of it handling paperwork after all. Finally she clutched the top of the cushion itself. Making sure none of the retainers had entered the room, she quickly ripped it off its foundation, creating a laceration in it that vomited out a small cloud of feathers. Peach blinked in bewilderment as she peered into the springwork and boarding underneath. Reaching in with her other hand, she tore out a large manilla envelope kept together by a thick clay royal seal. Again checking over her shoulders, she eviscerated the paper container and pulled out a bundle of paper that unfolded down to the floor. Peach covered her mouth in shock as her eyes slowly scanned down it.

My dear...

It was, of course, in her father's handwriting. What was more concerning about it, however, was that while the paper was a little worn and the ink dry, the document itself was relatively new. Although her heart raced, she slowly digested the contents of the final message letter by letter. As it tapered off into nothingness, Peach found the paper slipping silently to the floor. She slowly rose back to her feet and nearly stepped backwards off the short stairs as she shook her moistening face.

"Oh, daddy..."

* * *

**NSx: cOVeNAnt REpoRt**

**pRInCesS toaDsTOoL**

* * *

"The stars."

Peach blinked, finding herself waking up again. She stretched up her arms, dragging them off the edge of the patio table. She could barely clamber over them at her age, but she managed to reach out enough to use the surface to draw with her crayons. Peach rubbed her eyes as she looked around. Her father loomed over her again, but with the glowing smile that infused energy into her any time she gazed upon it. The two were on one of the patios of the palace, the moon high in the sky and locked in a maze of brightly glowing stars above it and the town lights beneath.

"You're certainly fascinated by the stars." he added, chuckling to himself.

Peach coughed as she looked back down at the paper. It carried a crude drawing of a shooting star along with herself and her stick-figure parents, including grossly exaggerated smiles and clothing proportions (and in the case of the male, circumference). She huffed at her guardian as she rapidly rolled it up, storing it at her side as she folded her arms and turned her flushed face away.

The king stared into the sky. "I don't think any less of your maturity for admiring them. To be awestruck by anything, and to sit somewhere to stare at and think about it, if anything that's a SIGN of growth." he pulled another patio chair to peach, plopping down in it and throwing an arm around his daughter. "But you've always been that person, really. You're always sticking your little nose into kingly business you shouldn't, heh, but at the same time you're quite the little bookworm and your tutors tell me you're one of the highest-graded students they've ever had in the second grade. I'm very proud of you and will always love you."

Peach snuggled in closer.

"In a few days you turn seven. Have you put any thought into what you want?"

"I want the stars."

The monarch let out a guffaw. "We all do, dear. We all do. It's only natural."

"Really?" Peach whispered.

"Let me tell you an old story," the king adjusted himself in the chair, relaxing further. "Now this might sound funny to you, but it's an old legend passed down through my family. Somewhere up there is a city of stars, way waaaay far away. According to the mushroom people of this land, the ancestors of you and I fell down to the world in great green plumes of smoke, and were revered by their hosts as messengers from the heavens... the Star Road. As time went on, the mushroom people began to worship us. At the same time however, their visitors didn't have an inkling of who they were or where they came from, nothing beyond their identity as 'humans'. Eventually the fervor died down, and the religion diminished to merely an understanding that humans carried a divine right to leadership. That was the beginning of the various monarchies of the world; here, Sarasaland, and beyond."

Peach exhibited pouty lips.

"...is something wrong dear?"

"Are we better than the mushroom people, dad?"

"Hah," the lord slapped his knee. "I was expecting something like that. Telling it to a child, a human child especially. I'll tell you what though..." he stabbed a finger playfully into Peach's chest. "That might be what's considered the official story, but I don't believe in this inequality at all. The humans can't do everything all by themselves. A government only works as well as its bureaucracy, and even moreso its population. If it weren't for the rest of the palace backing me up, and the servants of the state, and the hardworking people that live in this city and country, then my position wouldn't help anyone. I'm sure you have mushroom friends, and you don't think any lower of them than you do yourself."

Peach counted on her hands at the second-last statement, losing focus on her patriarch as he rose back to his feet. He limply lumbered over to the patio's edge, staring aimlessly up into the sky. "To be totally honest, while it's my royal duty to protect the strength of the Kingdom, and to ensure that empathetic and intelligent leadership takes the reins when my time is past, I'd like to give more power to the population... at some point, maybe the title of monarch will be passed back to the indigenous people of this land, rather than kept in the sanctum of humanity. Perhaps the government of the future won't be a monarchy at all."

"...the Star Road."

"I'd like to go on, but I think it's far past my little princess's bedtime. Rest assured knowing that you'll get more time to yourself and the night sky as you get a little older."

His offspring's body would eventually be drug back inside, but her eyes remained glued on the twinkling gems in the sky.

* * *

"She's doing quite well I'd say," the retainer adjusted his glasses as he cycled the papers in his hands. "She's certainly above average in her history, mathematics, physics and common language training. Her biology and chemistry are starting to slip a bit though. She still maintains an extremely high reading level for her age however."

The king chuckled to himself. He sat perched upon his throne, resting a limp head in a palm. "You had to confiscate her history texts in those classes I assume?"

"How did you know?"

"I have to do it once in a while myself. Ever since I sat down and started telling her some of the old family stories and traditions, she's been doing more heavy reading in the castle library. Some days I can't get her out of there, others I have to stop her from charging out the front door trying to validate what she sees."

"Ah yes... we've recently had a change of head retainer, he was wondering why your daughter would have an escort and curfew at the age of 11."

The ruler inhaled and slowly exhaled a sigh. His head shifted from side to side as he turned his focus to the window. Peach could be seen sitting underneath a tree off in the distance - or, rather, the gigantic telltale stack of hardcover books. "...I'm growing concerned."

"Why is that, your highness?"

"Just how she's developing, that's all. It's great that she's gotten into the books and is self-educating, but... she's taking it to excessive levels. She doesn't maintain much contact with her school friends anymore and she completely eschews particular subjects of conversation in favor of others, similar to what you've just mentioned."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the legend of Star Road, would it?"

The liege shifted uncomfortably. "It's my belief that it is. Why do you ask?"

"Just her foci of interest, that's all," the tutor bowed to the lord. "I see this behavior a lot in students that... well, I think a better way of explaining it is that every child becomes enamored with something in their early years, and that's what they're convinced on pursuing in their short-term life. You know, the 'I want to be X when I grow up' spiel, whether that happens to be a doctor or a cowboy. I'm certain she'll pass through this phase eventually. She does have much to learn after all, she is to be your heir correct?"

An uneasy silence strangled everyone in the room.

"I-I apologize," the teacher suddenly crumpled to his knees, dropping his head to the ground. "What I said was none of my concern, to question the royal family like that, I-"

"No," the king responded solemnly. "...I would like nothing more than that. To be questioned. There are times that what I choose to do, or what I do... may have undesired consequences. I wish I could consult with the people more. I wonder if she can truly take up the mantle..."

"What are you implying? Pardon my ignorance sire, but who else could you possibly have in mind? She is your only next of kin, and if I'm not mistaken the last census stated that no other humans took up residence in these districts. Were you intending to send out an expedition to se-"

"Please stop."

The servant stumbled back at the sudden sternness exuded by the typically cheerful leader. "...anyways, I will have my students' report cards completed and ready to issue within the next few days, I assure you your daughters will be at the top of the list both in grade and order of delivery."

"That will be all." the king interjected before his subject could get anything off. Realizing that the usually cheery ruler was displaying a rare case of rapidly-rising irritation, the room was soon vacated. The king sat uncomfortably in the eerily-silent hall, reaching up to try to rub away the worried contortions in his face.

* * *

"So do you like it, dear?"

The 14-year-old Peach slouched in front of the gigantic polished mirror in her room. She chewed her lip in protest as the retainers shifted about the crowded room, threatening to sweep both her and her father away. The flaring, regal dress she decorated herself with was a vibrant, deep pink, with darker shades trimming it and comprising the sash around her waist. Bulbous balls of cloth topped the shoulders which her arms stuck out of, themselves wrapped in long, tight silk gloves. A bright, fist-sized sapphire was locked into the front of the chest, with smaller blue gems alternating with marble-like rubies in the otherwise simple gold crown that sat on her head.

"I can barely move in it." Peach grumbled.

"I'm sure you can," her father commented reassuringly. "You seemed to be just fine at the luncheon today."

"I can't run, I can't bend over, I can't..." Peach sighed. "It's really uncomfortable. Can I change back yet?"

The king eyed a nearby chair. A simple pair of jeans and white shirt sat neatly folded on it.

"I'm at your mercy here..." Peach tried to kneel but found herself stumbling over the dress. She quickly righted herself but kept her hands clasped together in desperate prayer. "You know how you invited my class to my birthday party last week?"

The king shrugged. "Did I let someone in you didn't like? I don't know who your friends are precisely, you never have anyone over. Anyways, yes, what of it?"

Peach folded her arms and turned her embarassed face away, pouting. "They alllll got a good look at this dress. There was no, 'Princess Toadstool is pretty', or 'your father must be sooooo proud of you', or anything like that. They were all sitting away from me keeping their laughs quiet. They all looked at me, they did, they did. They said I just looked like a big, fat, ripe peach!"

The monarch knelt down, slapping a meaty hand on her shoulder. "Don't let them get you down. The retainers and I think you look absolutely adorable. Do you know who made this dress? The new head retainer watched over its creation, he's quite the handyman. Can one of you folks fetch Wooster?"

A taller mushroom, himself carrying a much more humanoid appearance than the others around him, separated himself from the crowd. He elegantly extended an arm and bowed to his superior. "You need not. I am present, sire."

"Hah!" the king bellowed, wrapping Peach up in one hand and hugging against her. "You see? Wooster and the finest tailors of the Town came together to create this brilliant gown! why don't you tell Wooster how you like it?"

"...I hate it." Peach finally blurted.

Everyone in the room looked like they'd been punched in the gut, or at the very least slapped across the face. Many of the retainers grumbled to each other, some in humiliation, others in shock. Wooster seemed relatively unaffected. The bulk of the damage, however, was dealt to her father. He slumped back, trying desperately to wrap his dismay in another jolly chortle. "...w-well, I suppose beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder yes? Go on, tell Wooster what you've found wrong with it, I'm sure we can remedy any faults in the dress easily enough."

"I told you, I can't even move properly without getting sore..." Peach's hands hovered around her waist. "It feels like I'm losing circulation to my gut... and why does the bottom have to poof out all over the place, it makes me look really fat and sometimes I trip over the cloth."

"That's a crinoline, dear," her father quickly shot back, trying to avoid offended interruptions from the retainers. "It's designed to elaborate the female figure, it's all the craze in the ballroom."

"I don't care about looking pretty in the first place if I have to limp along to do it!"

"Please understand... you don't have to wear this all the time, you just need to slip into it for castle events and when we have entrepreneurs and diplomats from Sarasaland over. For Kingdom business, you know? We can make adjustments to the gown so it's more comfortable for you, but we can't change the basic design-"

"Just stop." Peach shook her head.

Wooster leant over to the king, shielding his ear with a hand as he whispered. "Your highness, if you ask my opinion, we should carry on the remainder of this... 'sizing' in private, some of the retainers are getting a little agitated by your daughter's behavior. I remain neutral on the matter, that is my role as head retainer after all, but you must understand what lengths were gone through to obtain the materials for such regal wear."

"Everyone, please calm down," the king suddenly took command of the room once again. "I and Wooster would like some time with her in private, you are to all return to your general duties at once. Thank you for your diligence in this matter." The door creaked open again and the swarm of mushroom folk all bumped about each other as they shuffled out of the single exit. The grumbling continued, rising to a cacophony in the ruler's mind as the last few workers left the room.

"Selfish little brat." one coughed.

"And this is the heir to the throne..." another wheezed.

"GET OUT!!" the king suddenly exploded, forcefully shoving the last few retainers out. One was knocked to the ground, quickly clambering to his feet in bewilderment of the complete flip in personality. With him, Wooster and Peach remaining in the room, he slowly shut the door and pressed his back to it. Wooster remained stoic; Peach stared at him in genuine anguish. Gazing upon the horrified face of his daughter was enough to make him fall along the door and onto his bottom. "...I... I-I'm sorry..."

* * *

Another three years passed and the king found himself standing in the same room, sighing as he gazed at the dress as it hung limply in the Princess's wardrobe. As she entered puberty a new, reproportioned dress of the same style had to be created to accommodate the growing woman. At the same time however, it seemed to be gathering dust at an accelerating rate, even when stored out of direct contact with the air. Beyond a set of similarly-constructed 'emergency' gowns, which were slowly meeting the same fate, T-shirts and various styles of jeans and casual pants were freshly washed and neatly folded. If they hadn't been there the closet's air likely wouldn't be breathable.

Behind that however, was the crown jewel of her private assets. An 8-foot tall and slim white cardboard box was neatly taped shut, carrying both the lose components of, and considerably less often, an expensive telescope.

Grunting to himself he gradually navigated out of the room, out of the royal quarters, and soon out of the fortress itself. He carried himself through the castle gardens and up to the pinnacle of a hill that separated the neatly-trimmed lawns of the fort from the twinkling Toad Town suburbs. The sun had gone down long ago, but a set of lanterns kept the peak lit as children and relatives of the retainers played simple physical and party games. Nearly tripping over one of the smaller mushroom folk as they stormed laughing by his feet, he finally set sight at the very top of the hill, where Peach slouched as she tinkered with various dials and swinging lenses on the monstrous telescope.

"Princess..." he mumbled, quickly advancing on her. "The retainers and I have been looking for you all over! Didn't you get the schedule? The estate representatives are all gathered in the hall, we're beginning talks in the next ten minutes! Now, let's hurry back-"

"Gotcha," Peach sighed. "I'm just wrapping up here, I got some good magnified photographs of the Big Bucket. I'll get one of the retainers to watch this thing and I'll be down in five minutes."

"You don't understand, I need you to get changed into your dress immediately if we're going to make it on ti-"

Peach grunted and glanced over her shoulder. "I'll be more than happy to stand in as another representative of the regality while you do your negotiations, sure, but you're not getting me back into that thing. I swear, every iteration of it you show to me comes with a smaller and smaller waist, one of these days I'm not going to be able to walk for more than 5 minutes before I get a blood imbalance in my body."

"Please understand, I'm just trying to make you presentable for the other human nobles..."

He quickly realized his poor choice of words as Peach finally rose from the telescope and stomped over to her father. She thrust a finger into his pudgy chest and lowered her face intimidatingly-close to his, spitting her agitated breath over him as she spoke. "Listen. As in, actually listen, like you never seem to do. You can court me to the other rich guys as much as you like but it's not going to change the fact that I'm not interested in any of them. I don't care how grubby you think I look right now, this is all I need to wear to pursue my real passions. I understand your desire to teach me about how the castle works and all that, and I compromise and compromise and compromise because of it. I take on the tasks you give me, I'm at the head of the class and will probably always be, and I have my branch of the retainerhood working night and day for the good of the Kingdom, but you won't stop pestering me to keep up an image that I simply can't."

"What are you implying?"

Peach shook her head. "I won't take the throne. I'll continue to serve the Kingdom but I have to do it in a way that I'm handy with, comfortable with."

The king looked visibly grief-stricken. "...how could you say such a thing?"

"You've taught me so much about being a responsible human being, but in the end I owe at least some responsibility for my own well-being. Disown me if you like, I understand your stance in any regard. I've already taken up membership with an astronomers' sect in Toad Town, and someday I... we, hope to find something that is heresy to those that stand firmly by the legend of Star Road."

"...you certainly have the regal language down pat, at the very least." the king wiped an eye.

"Wasn't it you that said someday you wished that rule of the Kingdom would be passed back to its own people? Why not start now?"

She got no answer. Instead the king began to slump away weakly, and fell down onto his bottom as if he'd taken a shot to the kidneys. He let out a wounded groan, shaking his head as he stared up into the sky alongside his daughter. "...I don't know what to say, really. Whether I'm disappointed, or heartbroken... I should have seen this coming. You were always different from your peers, always either off in a world of your own or dissecting ours. You're an incredibly intelligent young woman. I was sincerely hoping that you would be able to use that intuition to lead your people."

Peach returned to tinkering with the scope. "Don't try to guilt-trip me, you know I'll still be around for whatever chores you assign to me."

"But I-"

"YOUR HIGHNESS! Your... highness..." a retainer hobbled up the hill as fast as his stubby legs could take him. He stumbled to a stop between the two, wheezing uncontrollably as he slumped over. "W-we-we have an emergency at the castle! We need you both to report back, NOW!"

"I was working on that." the king grumbled, glaring at Peach.

"Nononono, not that, we've evacuated the ball room and the visitor wing, we have a fire raging out of control between the two... we're fighting it at the moment and we've managed to at least isolate it from the rest of the castle, but I'm not sure if we can save that side of the structure."

"Take us there immediately." the king commanded, feeling his heart jump into his throat.

"Teddy, watch the scope for now, I have to go." Peach shouted as she leapt down the hill, leading ahead of the other two.

* * *

The heat in the garden was already sweltering when the regality and retainer arrived at the scene, and the night sky glowed blindingly as flames and smoke continued to pour out of the second floor and roof of the castle's visitor wing. A pair of retainers struggled to hold up an emergency hose, blasting water into windows that suddenly lashed out with fire. Peach jumped to the front, latching onto the hose and pointing it firmly inwards. "How the hell did this happen?!"

One of the surprised retainers loosened his grip slightly and let Peach take over. "Started from the third chamber on the second floor, all that I could gather was that the family staying there for the ball brought their own space heater... and we have old outlets, and that's what happens. We warned them, but-"

"Is anyone still in there?"

"Speak of... the... devil..." another mushroom wheezed. He sat slumped against one of the hedges, clutching a half-used fire extinguisher the size of him. "I just got out, I was trying to make a path. One of the estate families' sons is still stuck in there. They'd left him home while they toured Toad Town and we haven't heard anything from him since-" he jerked in response as the shriek of a child came from within the building. "Oh, no!"

Peach leapt away from the hose, causing the two retainers on it to fall down as they tried to right the stream of water. "Hose me down."

The king coughed. "What?"

"What good is that going to do?..." the escapee mumbled.

"I'll head in and look myself. If you coat me with that crap it should give me a couple of minutes at least. I can get him out of there."

"A-a-are you INSANE?!" the king sputtered.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch some kid get turned to ash! I told you time and again, I'll serve the kingdom, and I'll serve any that deserve it! I don't have to be a king or a queen or a princess to do any of that! Now," Peach roared as she turned to the fire extinguisher, spreading her arms and closing her eyes. "LET ME GO!!"

The mushroom behind the extinguisher winced and shut an eye as he blasted Peach with the contents of the extinguisher. Peach wiped as much of the sticky foam away from her eyes as she could and snatched the empty canister from its holder's hands. With all her strength she hurled it at the entrance to the dormitory with a thunderous crash, and clambered through the remains of the aged wooden door into the inferno. She shielded her face as the roars and stings of the flames and smoke leapt up around her, and began to trudge through the chaos. She slapped the bedroom doors with her free fist, scrambling to find the one that would give her a panicked response. Finding herself at the stairs, she grumbled to herself and began to force herself up them. She let out a cry as her foot fell through one of the weakened steps, but pried herself free and continued her ascent.

"Are you here?! Say something!" Peach snarled as she repeated the process. She'd escaped the settled smoke but the heat was now tenfold as she advanced closer to the source of the fire. She jumped as she heard a weakened cry up ahead. From behind the fifth door on the left came the whimper she needed. Daring not to touch the handle she jumped up and slammed both of her feet into the door, smashing it off its hinges. The same impact, however, was enough to cave in the roof near her and block reentry to the hallway. Cursing to herself she stumbled inside and found the smaller mushroom child hiding under the wooden desk in the corner. "C'mon, we gotta get out of h..." she stopped herself as she realized he was unconscious, likely from earlier smoke inhalation. Lifting him up in her arms, she surveyed her surroundings again. The hallway was now totally immolated and barricaded by the debris she had just helped to incur. All that was left was a small stationary patio-style window... and a two-storey drop. But she had no time to jimmy it open and request something to break her fall either. All that was left to do was... hope for a hedge.

"This is going to suck." Peach said flatly, backing up and starting a mad charge at the window. She turned as she leapt, shattering through the window with her shoulder as she spun herself the best she could to land on her back and protect her cargo from harm. The fall was one thing, but she hadn't stopped to consider where the rest of the glass shards would be going.

All of Peach's plans were ultimately assumptions.

She slammed down hard against the grass. Any wind she had left in her was expelled in a weak cry of agony as the fall both broke plenty of bones and drove multiple fragments of glass through her limbs and side. She eagerly awaited unconsciousness, but the prospect of it drifted away as dozens of panicked retainers and nobles crowded around her and the inert body in her arms.

* * *

_I was like many parents, and did not know what to make of having an offspring that I would have to pass all my traditions and snippets of knowledge along to. It was a great responsibility for myself, due both to having a potential heir to the throne for my inevitable absence and the abandonment of your mother due to my... physical condition. You may or may not know this, but I should mention it before moving into any other notifications: I myself am not a full-blooded human. My father was handsome among the mushroom folk and was wed to my human mother in a move that angered a great deal of the current human nobility because of, as you can probably assume at this point, the Star Road legend. This was largely a secret known to few and once your mother caught wind of it, she abandoned us shortly after you were born. I purposely had a rumor spread that she had left because of my, well, weight gain. I would discourage you from seeking her out, and hope that you take my word for it as to what kind of person she was._

_I was so proud of you in your earlier years. You'd spend day in and day out in the library, soaking up whatever fact and fiction you could, stories and legends, statistics and estimates. That wasn't enough for you however, you proved and disproved, and wanted to learn and explore further. You may have flunked your common-language classes at the upper level, but you could still outwit myself and much of the retainers and royalty without as much as breaking a sweat. At the same time however, some of my closest contacts in the retainerhood disliked you greatly, and felt that I had treated you TOO well. You were influential and intelligent, but at the same time rebellious, and they had their doubts about what kind of future leader you would make. At a time, I myself feared that I spoiled you too much, let you have too much freedom. With your final confirmation that you wished not to take the throne, I assumed all was lost._

_But I didn't understand you fully, much to my dismay. You constantly took charge in scenarios that demanded your attention and dealt swift instructions and closed all concerns with justice and care. When you braved the deadly flames that night to save that child, I finally understood what you meant about serving those you care about... to be a citizen, a friend, a hero, one does not need silly honorifics to commit such deeds. You are the symbol of the kingdom, my daughter, not as a princess, but a motif. And now, as I watched you command the keypers into battle and manage the defenses of a kingdom that I once thought was mine, all I could do was sit here like an old fool and do paperwork and write crude effigies like these. You deserve better than to turn into someone like me, not with your ambition._

_By the name of the royal family and the sovereignty of my crown, I am forbidding you from service as Queen. Instead, as of writing, I am granting you a far more prestigious title, one that will let you pursue your dreams along with those of the Mushroom Kingdom:_

**_I, HERBERT TREVOR TOADSTOOL OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM APPOINT_**

**_PRINCESS MATHILDA AVERN TOADSTOOL GRAND AMBASSADOR AND INTERWORLD EMISSARY OF THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM_**

_This, of course, leads one to assume who will take my place. I have included other documentation with this letter that will take care of those matters. I have another potential leader in mind, but if you simply turn this into the retainerhood and let them deal with it I won't blame you. They will receive all the proper training from the estate royalty and take my place whether they like it or not, for this is my final command. And if they don't... well, you'll just have to come back and beat sense into them won't you?_

_Wear a coat wherever you decide to go, I don't want you catching a cold._

* * *

Peach found enough feeling left in her fingers to flip through the remainder of the sheets. Her eyes tore them apart and took in the information - down to the name, which made her chuckle. "...oh I totally bet they're going to like to hear this news." she stood back to her feet, drawing her keyblade. "You can stop hiding now, I know you've been here the whole time."

Bob floated down through the air to the center of the throne room. "I did not expect you to be able to detect me so easily in this state. You are not afraid of my presence anymore?"

"It's hard to be afraid of anything at this point, really." Peach sat down on the steps of the throne, still wiping her eyes as she tried to stare the blob of Vast down. "So what's your story? Why'd you creep into my room and plant all those subliminal messages into my head about my dad? You're not MORE Vast here to attack me are you?"

"That was not me, in fact... that resonance is what brought me to this location in space-time actually. You were very grief-stricken about the loss of your family member indeed, enough to question your own future and doubt your past. I was expecting you to be in much more pain, but that your father had left you a message enabling you to carry on... that was ingenious of him indeed. I am satisfied to see you in a stable state."

"Oh, I'm happy that's all cleared up... I think I can manage, both for his sake and mine. But what he said there is cute, 'Interworld Emissary'. It's going to take more than that to propel me off this turd hurtling through space. Me and my friends, we've been trying to hunt down some way to build a spacecraft... we've been going at that for months with little to no success. I was told I tame some Vast and use that to travel, but nope. We can't find a usable quantity of it anywhere that doesn't try to eat my brains when I get close. In fact, I'm surprised you haven't."

"You are aware you are a Nobody, correct?"

"Yeah." Peach wheezed.

"I assure you that I will not 'eat your brains' as your kind puts it. I wish no harm to you. I simply wish to keep surveying you, and I believe with your last request we can come to a compromise."

"...'surveying'?"

"You are an exceptional person, Mathilda, for the reasons your father have stated and that I have witnessed... you went to the precipice of desperation and back again. You truly are a voice of reason, and for those reasons you are an incredibly power keyper and also stand to be one of many that will ascend your earthly limitations and that of the Nobody. For this reason I wish to accompany you on your journeys."

"Yeah, and what exactly do you intend to do?" Peach sighed. "And no one calls me Mathilda anymore, if we're going to have to continue this relationship I'd prefer to be cal-"

"Very well, Peach. I have an offer for you, but I cannot reveal my true form yet, as our meeting must be cut short."

"And why is that?"

"The one you call Troy is in danger."

* * *

Lantz continued to loom over Troy's disabled body, managing to finally recapture his breath and return to his arrogant feign. Spitting out another small amount of blood he gave a few kicks to the Koopa's body before realizing that he was still, in fact, kicking a turtle shell. His eyes turned to the Chronicle that laid bare on the ground a short distance away, the bond weakened enough for it to physically exist outside of Troy's grasp. "And where's them other keypers you spoke so highly of? I was hoping for at least some souvenir keychains for the others."

Peach's sneaker knocked it away. Lantz froze and stared up at her with a dull haze over his face as the Chronicle continued to grind against the ground and spin to a gradual stop.

"I'm one of them."

"The hell is this supposed to be?" Lantz cackled. "What kind of operation do these people run, sending women and children first? Whatever makes it easier for me to pry them from your cold, dead ha-"

"By my right of succession and the sovereignty of the crown, I'm telling you to leave this place now or I'm going to shove this thing up your ass so far it's going to give you a root canal."

"A pretty face, and an authority figure, too! I imagine some guys would like that, but frankly you should just take it face down ass up!"

Peach's keyblade flashed out, gleaming gold as it shifted form rapidly. Its keychain token suddenly ruptured outwards, creating an eyed five-pronged star. The weapon's teeth radiated yellow light as they suddenly bent 90 degrees and jutted out in front of the horizontally-held weapon. She held it up even to her eyes, lunging forth with surprising speed at Lantz. Lantz's waist buckled backwards as he avoided the attack, suddenly finding himself unable to find footing as Peach jaunted at him once more. Unable to break the frontal assault, he somersaulted backwards and braced himself on one knee, firing another blast of pressure from his good hand at his rapidly-approaching opponent. Peach stumbled back as she was slammed by the wall of force, hidden globules of Vast suddenly exploding backwards as they absorbed the bulk of the impact.

"Vast?!" Lantz growled.

"You alright?" Peach mumbled.

Bob's voice crept out of the air from all around. "It will take more than that to deter me, Peach. Continue your commands."

Lantz and Peach circled about each other as Bob's remains disappeared to the naked eye again. "...hah.. interesting fighting style you have... but it's far too formal to take care of me with. And I'm afraid you're not too good with concealing your dirty tricks."

"I am a princess, you know," Peach mumbled. "What kind of royalty doesn't have at least some fencing under their belt? How do you think I live carrying around a keyblade? As far as self-defense, well, I'm a scholar of more than just arts, you pissed me off at a really bad time and for once I'm really going to defend someone into the dirt."

"This is old." Lantz sighed, discharging another blast into Peach. He grimaced as she ate the brunt of it, launching backwards across the chamber and bouncing painfully to a stop. "...wow, really? You can't even defend yourself again?"

Peach was already up on her feet, cracking her neck. "Actually, you really can't defend that great either."

"What are you-" Lantz suddenly looked back at the ground. The Chronicle was gone. "...what?! You, what did you-" Lantz was interrupted as a whistle cut through the air. The Chronicle flew straight at him of its own accord, lancing through straight to Lantz's chest. He leapt out of the way, shocking it out of midair with another pulse of energy from his fist. It clashed the to ground, but quickly slid across the floor to Peach. "This is friggin' stupid! How can you just command Vast around like-"

"Who said I was commanding it?"

"If it's dicking around with the Chronicle, then that means you're open!!" Lantz clasped both his free and injured hand together, firing a massive blast of force at Peach that tore up the air in the room as it barrelled at her. With a cry Peach thrust her key-rapier forward, seeming to completely annul the attack. Moments later two separate sections of wall on both sides behind her imploded.

"He is more intelligent than he seems," Bob's voice radiated. "Do not relent."

Lantz threw both his arms behind him, dealing the same damage in the other direction as he blasted himself through the air. The room was buried in a shockwave as he both halted himself and attacked from closer, one arm in the front and the other behind, Peach grunted as she thrust herself through that one, her blood running cold as a series of midair explosions marked Lantz zigzagging through the air at nigh-invisible speed to her side and launching another blast. Vast splattered against the wall again as he spun around behind her, striking from the other side. The air shimmered and pushed her to the side slightly but otherwise had no effect. Growling, with another burst of air he leapt to her back, already halfway into delivering a haymaker to the back of Peach's head. Lantz cried out in shock as it splashed into another phasing field of Vast.

"Now!"

Peach thrust the Invincible under he shoulder with all of her might, managing to plunge it straight through Lantz's left bicep. Lantz tore himself away, spinning backwards and slamming into the inner sanctum door. "From every goddamn angle, what is that that keeps you covered-"

"To keep on standing up when I get knocked down, the strength to thrust forward with not a fear in mind, to go any way without a doubt in the world! That's what my keyblade represents, to be unbreakable! With my keyblade... I create forcefields, which both protect and provide quick application of other adhesive defenses..."

"Screwed up bad..." Lantz panted as he clutched the gigantic rupture in his arm. Blood continued to ooze from it and his mutilated hand. "This is un-fucking-believable. I'm going to have to get out of here..."

"I'm not done with you!!" Peach held her blade up with both hands, causing the air in front of her to distort again. A solid wall of force exploded out of it, pounding the full breadth of Lantz's body against the door with a painful crunch. Peach followed behind with renewed adrenalin as she rammed the keyblade through his chest, the combined force shattering the royal doors and forcing Lantz back off it. Lantz's face turned pale as his hand clamped down on the wound, beginning to feel his bodily fluids shift.

Lantz now lacked the vitality to create a coherent response. "Fuck. You." With one last burst of energy, his other index finger jetted through the air to trace a circular pattern in the air. Reeling forward, he slammed his shoulder back into the cutout, breaking a hole into a subspace. He flashed one last sadistic grimace at Peach before allowing his weakened body to fall through it. Peach leapt forward at the portal, but as quickly as it had appeared it sealed up with a twinkle of light. Feeling the weakness in her own body return, Peach collapsed to one knee, propping herself up with the Invincible. She wheezed as she gazed back over her shoulder as the still-languid Troy.

She tapped her forehead with two fingers, tipping them back to Troy. "You owe me. BIG."

* * *

Troy's eye slowly crept open, receding and rising again as he struggled with the sudden influx of light. Feeling was slowly returning to his muscles and limbs, and after sorely letting his head roll to the side, he gazed at his Vast-hand as he tried to raise his arm.

"Whoa man, settle down. You haven't moved for a while so you're gonna have to ease into things. How many fingers am I holding up?"

Troy flinched again, not bothering to try to discern the voice. "...12? I mean... what? Who are you? Where am I? What about-"

"He's been taken care of, don't worry. What we need to do now is get you... well, back to reality. It's me, Derek." As Troy's vision began to clear, he could begin to make out the scraggly-chestnut-haired man sitting next to him. Derek sat on a stool, dressed in as plain clothing as could be - a white T-shirt and blue jeans. He smiled and the light gleamed off his glasses. It was the dark of night outside the window. "You're in the castle infirmary. You got beat up pretty badly from what I hear, but it's nothing TOTALLY life-threatening. You took some damage to the scapula and your pelvic girdle got a little jarred, and lost some blood, but it's nothing that some splints, muscle relaxants, painkillers, transfusions... well, okay, it actually is somewhat complicated, but we've handled the serious stuff and from hereon you should be okay with a week or so off the job."

"Wait, Lantz, what happened to-" Troy quickly sat up, collapsing again as he felt something sharp jab into his shoulder muscles. "GAKK-"

"Okay, let me give you a more tangible prognosis..." Derek said flatly. "Lie down in your bed and shut up for a while. If you're talking about the invader, then yeah, I already got an earful about that. Auron dispatched me when he detected some fluctuations in your lifesigns from your Shambhala attunement. He figured I'd be able to sneak around easier because there's a good balance of humanoid Nobodies on this world. I imagine Fires would've been able to patch you up faster, but you know, diplomacy blah blah."

"Peach? Mario? Luigi? Sel-"

"From what I've gathered, it was Peach of all people that saved your ass. None of the others had any idea what was going on."

Troy slouched back in the bed. "Oh, no... is she alright?"

"She's been treated for minor injuries, but besides that she supposedly tore him a new one." Derek's eyes shifted as there was a light knock at the door. "Come in."

The door creaked open and Peach hobbled in, a crutch under one arm. She smiled at the two as she made her way across the room. "Mr. Stiles, thank you again. I'm doubly lucky to have both made it out of that in one piece AND had an active trauma surgeon in the castle at the same time."

Derek nodded at Peach. "You're very welcome. I merely happened to be in the right place at the right time."

"I know, right?" Troy said dully. Derek jabbed him in the shoulder. "OWWWWWWOWOWOWOWOW!"

"Anyways," Derek turned his attention back to Peach. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, don't mind this," Peach glanced at the crutch. "My legs are still a little shaky, that's all. It's not every day that I have to fight a person to the death. I have to thank you for the... loperamide! Yeah, that's what you called it. It's fixed my... other concerns since I had that bout of night terror a while ago..."

"Loperamide?" Troy mumbled.

"Diarrhea." Derek shot back.

"Wait, WHAT?" Troy looked back at Peach with a guffaw. Peach jabbed him in the shoulder. "AUGGHHGHGHG-"

"I need to go consult with some of the retainers about how we're going to handle security for the next while. There's no telling what could happen now that someone simply walked onto the grounds and started pummeling Troy. Well, and me I guess. I'll leave you with Troy so you can tend to some of his other wounds while I gather the castle staff in the banquet hall. There's also our monarch problem... but I think I've discovered a unique solution."

"Very well," Derek nodded to Peach, waiting until the door clicked shut behind her before turning back to Troy. "What the hell happened out there? You're not the kind to get the crap kicked out of you this badly."

"Well, you know that I stopped back on Plit to chill and catch up with the guys until Auron called on me next. I stayed in the palace here for a bit, and earlier this morning one of the guards said that there was a visitor for me. I went out to check on it and that's when Lantz got the drop on me. He had WEIRD powers, he could project raw force out of his body. He called himself the 'Pusher', and he was manipulating the light and sound in the room so that no one but me could see what was going on. I was his target."

"Let me guess..."

"He was a Nepenthe. He rambled on and on about how Sirius had tried earlier to get the Chronicle but failed. That's not what he called him, though... Lantz kept referring to him as Belphegger or something."

"Belphegor?" Derek mused. "It's a common folklore name, even on different worlds. Sometimes an evil spirit, other times a demon. It's usually used as a metaphor for sloth. I wonder what he could have meant by it..."

Troy let his hand slowly fall as he wiped his face. "That's not what bothers me, though... it's that he just marched straight to the castle door and challenged me there. The Nepenthes are still after the Chronicle and they probably assume that I'm just chilling here. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't want to put myself on a pedestal here, but I don't know what would have happened if I wasn't here..."

"No, I understand."

"What happens if he comes back? What happens if they send MORE super villains like him here to tear up the place?"

"Troy, the Covenant will protect you."

"I'm not TALKING about my survival here, now Plit's in even MORE danger because of me!" Troy buried his head in his hands.

"We should bring this up with Auron," Derek said sternly. "Maybe he has a course of action we can take. I'm sure at the very least he could pull some strings and get a garrison of better-experienced keypers here to keep watch. He could even position a Covenant member here. Who knows? Right now, we have to figure out as much about this Lantz as possible and get closer to shutting down the Nepenthes. I happened to find out something interesting while you were asleep."

"What?"

"When Peach managed to critically wound Lantz, he escaped with a summoned portal of his own, disturbingly similar to a Shambhala-warp from the way she described it. I'm not sure what this could mean, but I imagine we'll figure out more once we get this information to Auron. For now, however, we should probably figure out what Peach wants to make of all this chaos. I'm going to wheel this bed out to the banquet hall, please, stay still."

* * *

Both Derek and Troy winced as the patient bed clicked and clacked out of the infirmary hallway and onto the carpets that typically coated the floors of the castle's interior. They weren't even halfway to the banquet hall and already a cacophony of disputing retainers and royals echoed back and forth through the polished corridors. Slowly the double doors swung open and the long table had all its paperwork moved out of the limelight, off to a side underneath one of the tall windows. Instead, the seats were full of said arguing mushrooms, with at least another 20-30 chairs moved in from other rooms for posterity. Peach sat at the front, desperately trying to get the attention of those in the room. Her eyes quickly caught onto those of her new two debaters, and she slammed her fists down on the table, spilling a glass of water in the process.

"EVERYONE, order in this goddamn COURT, I didn't drag you all in here for an auction, so all developing migraines aside, SHUT UP and let me talk for a moment."

Silence quickly fell across the crowd, with the attention divided down the middle between Peach and Derek/Troy.

Peach rapidly drummed the table with one hand's fingers. "First of all, to sate all your curiosity, YES an unknown assailant managed to simply walk into the castle and beat the crap out of someone, and later, myself. We've returned some of the keyper garrison to the castle to help investigate and be on watch for further terrorist acts... but actually, that's NOT why I've summoned you all to the hall this late in the night. We have a solution to the power gap created by the unfortunate death of my father."

"Have you come to your senses?"

"The young lady grew a pair and will rise to the throne?"

"I was afraid of this..."

"BE THE HELL QUIET," Peach blared, causing some chairs to shift back. "And listen to me for a moment. Earlier today, I found this concealed message hidden underneath the throne cushion, bearing the royal seal... it was a last message from my father to myself."

"Horsewash!"

Peach gently tossed the original letter onto the table. Eager arms pulled it to one of the mushroom nobles, who began to feverishly examine it with a fine eyeglass. "...this is authentic, indeed!"

A gasp settled over the crowd.

He let the glass dangle back to his chest. "The royal seal is flawless by itself, and the handwriting matches your father's, but this ink... this is Lavender Epiphany! Extremely exotic, it's thousands of coins to the drop! Only royalty could have afforded to spray this around... with this I must stand by the legitimacy of your documents."

"My father talked about me in ways that I would have never expected him to perceive myself... but I'm not going to bore you with emotional details. What followed that was truly his final words. When I grew up with my father, he had high hopes for myself, but he also lived with a heavy heart knowing that the Mushroom Kingdom would choose its leadership and move into the future with human blood controlling its dynasty. For the longest time, he tried his hardest to condition me to take the throne one day, and as young as I was I still knew it. He was disappointed when to his face I refused to take up the crown, but as time went on, we ultimately remained friends and family. Along the way, we both realized something... leadership, heroism and bravery are ambiguous. I remained faithful to the Kingdom and aided it where I could, both physically and logistically. The boy that I saved that night is in this room. Show yourself."

Everyone looked around in confusion. Slowly, shakily, one of the teenage nobles rose from the crowd.

"It's selfish for me to slap those titles on myself, but it didn't have to be me that charged in there and rescued him. It could have been anyone, friends, family, other servants, a bystander, that came to his aid. But I couldn't sit by and watch what was happening. You are all family to me. I would not have it any other way. It doesn't matter if you're a beggar or an emperor, like I've said on multiple occasions, such honorifics are silly to measure servitude with. Mushroom or human, we're all capable of great things. That's what my father realized at the end, and that's how he wants to honor the people of this Kingdom - the promotion of heroes small and large."

Another of the estate owners climbed. "I never would have thought the Princess Mathilda, who was such an utter brat in her youth, could belt out a speech with such bravado. You have our undivided attention. What is that you wish us to do?"

Peach slammed her fist down again, a devious grin sprouting on her face. "Obey my father's final wish and put Wooster on the throne!"

The entirety of the room burst into a calamitous uproar. Wooster, already halfway through his glass, spewed out its contents.

"My father was friends with Wooster for a great deal of time, actually, since his youth," Peach said sternly, her arms folded. "It was with great happiness that he was able to appoint Wooster as head retainer, and as I grew up he greatly admired both his patience with me and the leadership he displayed in managing the whole retainerhood and its business all over the kingdom. My father wanted someone like him at the head of the state - someone with compassion, honor, knowledge, and, uh, business sense. I have further documentation that will outline all his duties and responsibilities for him, and also his honors and powers."

"This is an utter betrayal!" the earlier estateer bellowed. "What of us, all of those also close, in many cases even closer to the king? Are we thrown out like dirty bathwater?"

"Shut up, I'm getting to that part," Peach held up another folded sheet, letting it accordion down to the floor. "Wooster will act as a figurehead of the kingdom and verify all laws and acts of the government before passing them to action. All those last few words are probably pretty alien to you indeed. Herbert's other clause specifies that a coup is to be administered by either Wooster or Mathilda, and that the kingdom be converted into a democratic monarchy. In short... I hope you guys are ready to actually manage your own lands instead of riding my father's coattails."

A half-celebration, half-revolt could be heard in the halls of the castle for hours to come.

* * *

A week came and went, and eventually Troy managed to get back on his feet. It was an early morning when he and Derek started down the road from the castle on the hill to somewhere they could Shambhala-warp with (hopefully) no mushroom witnesses. Looking over his shoulder, he caught the excited waves from Mario, Luigi and Selphie through one of the great lobby windows. Troy grinned as he returned them.

"Are you going to make a habit of this?" Derek chuckled.

"What?"

"Getting your ass handed to you on Plit. That seems to happen a lot from what I hear."

"Hmm, maybe in a while," Troy sighed. "At the same time though, I kinda get the feeling I'm not going to see Peach and those three for a while. I have this knack that they're really close to getting off this rock."

"At the same time though, you sound worried."

"Well, we DID just watch a government upheaval take place," Troy glanced a rock at his feet, watching it bounce as he booted it along with him. "Hopefully Wooster makes out alright. He has plenty of people ready to help him of course, and Peach herself knows every trick of the king's even if she doesn't want to admit it. She'll point him in the right direction and if anyone disagrees, she'll tear them a new one."

"I should probably get back to Shambhala before Auron bitches me out," Derek nodded to Troy. "But what are you going to do now?"

"Oh, I still have a few visits to make before I get bored. All the stars in the sky are friends, this is simply one of them."

"You wish."

Derek jabbed Troy in the shoulder again, making him cry out. Troy grumbled as he watched Derek flipped out a medical scalpel, carving a hole in space-time and shoving his way through it. The Shambhala gate closed as quickly as it appeared, and Troy was again left alone. He sighed, and turned to continue down the path - stumbling to a stop as he found Peach in front of him.

"Peach? Is everything alright? I-"

Peach nodded. "Everything's okay. I just happened to hear what you said, about me not being around much longer. The truth is the matter is... well, that it's the truth. Bob insists he has a way of transporting us to other worlds as we please. The others will be coming with me... hopefully we can get them home, somehow... anything is better than just sitting around here, really. Especially since I'm needed more for slapping sense into nobles than anything else, and I can always drop by when THAT'S needed."

"You're okay with Bob though? I mean..." Troy rubbed his head. "I wasn't expecting you to make up with him so fast. I could still pull some strings, you know, at the very least get you limited membership in the Covenant, they co-"

Troy froze as he realized Peach's lips were on his cheek. Troy's eyes rolled up to meet hers as she disembarked.

Peach winked to him before departing. "You'd just cramp my style."

* * *

It would be after another few days of thought that Peach walked out of the hedge maze, nodding to the sun-baked retainers as they watered, trimmed or otherwise maintained it. She wasn't concerned about subtlety at the moment. This was something she had to know, something she wanted to for a very, very long time. Bob hovered over top of an elaborately-mushroom-shaped jumping fountain awaiting her arrival. Peach stood her ground, fists clenched as she looked up at him.

"If you can get us off this world, then you're free to come with," Peach shouted. "Now, tell me your plan."

"It is as your Auron said. It is possible for me to mold into a form that would allow me to act as a vehicle between worlds. Typically this is done by enslaving primal Vast, but this in itself is a dangerous act. I shall act as your vessel."

"Sorry for sounding a little skeptical here, but you're maybe the size of a basketball?" Peach shifted her weight to the side. "How exactly are you going to get us anywhere?"

Peach's eyes widened as Bob began to crackle with purple energy and emit a groan of concentration. A blast of wind knocked her onto her behind, and she scrambled back up in time to watch the orb of Vast contort wildly and explode outwards, seeming to self-replicate as it folded in dozens of directions. Bit by bit, Vast paneling began to rivet itself together in front of her eyes, and the high-pitched whine it made died down into a low reverb as the dust cleared. Peach choked as she stumbled back to her feet, gazing in awe at what was in front of her. What had been an undiscernable sphere of Vast mere seconds ago had now transformed into a translucent vehicle; a jet-like craft the size of a townhouse with two sets of jagged, back-flowing wings and multiple streaks of spike-like fins. Visible through the exterior were multiple compartments for both living and command. Bob was now a starship.

Panicking retainers were now fleeing the hedges for their lives, while Mario, Luigi and Selphie forced their way into the open field.

"What in the seven cheeses did you just pull out of Bob?" Mario spat.

"...looks like a ride." Luigi mumbled, dumbstruck.

"Whooooeeee!!" Selphie wailed.

"I hope it is to your satisfaction." Bob's subdued voice suddenly boomed.

"I... I'll take it." Peach gaped.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, in the middle of Dark Land, the newly-renovated castle of Last Chance Ramparts had a swarming collection of palm trees growing atop it. In the middle of the grove, a gigantic hot tub was filled with bubbling brown sludge. Troy and Bowser both sat within with their arms draped over the edges, staring up into the simmering sun.

Bowser's snout fidgeted as he tried to balance his oversized sunglasses on them. "Wha, really? You mean everyone was expectin' her to become the king and she turned that all down? Is she frickin' crazy? Those Mushroom Kingdom nobles, I just can't figure out what the hell makes 'em tick."

"That's the deal," Troy wore even larger shades as he swirled around the umbrellaed mixed drink in his palm. "From what I heard, her dad made a lot of good points about the future of the kingdom... and about how everyone ultimately has to play their part in it as opposed to having a big conglomerate pointing all the fingers and feeling all guilty about not letting anyone else have any say in it."

"Bah, let 'em do that," Bowser grumbled. "Now around here, half the folk can't figure out a ballot from a rock on the ground, or a rock on the ground from another rock on the ground for that matter. We'll always have my ever-benevolent dictatorship, thanks muchly." Bowser took a long swig from the beer bottle in his hand, passing it off to one of the Koopa servants as they passed by. "Another Dark Land Dark, doubletime."

"Yeah, but I mean, even you yourself passed more duties off to the royal guard, eh?"

"That was a one time thing." Bowser sighed.

As Bowser's discussion turned to the latest football game between the Koopahari Carapaces and the Toad Town Terrors, Troy squinted and lowered his shades to make out an object in the sky. A bright sphere of purple energy rocketed upwards with its vapor trail cutting an arc across the empty wasteland airspace, very obviously having hit the stratosphere.

Troy raised his glass. "Happy trails."


	15. The Key

Angie stood several feet away from Troy's Shambhala sanctum. She remained motionless with her arms folded, finally tilting her head in confusion. The apprentice nurse and white mage glanced down at the 'DO NOT DISTURB' sign hanging from the the plain metal door's twist handle, one of (unadmittedly) many things that stopped her from barging straight through the door both in the present and past. She was familiar with most of the Covenant's individual haunts, but not that of the Warrior Paragon that rarely actually spent his time within Shambhala in the first place. Taking a deep breath and gathering her courage, she gave several quick, strong raps on the door. Nothing resulted.

"Troy, I know you're in there." Angie said sternly. Still no reply.

Finally, she simply twisted open the handle and never bothered peeking through a crack in the door, instead sticking her whole head through. She yanked it back out as the distinct odor of a Koopa hovel assaulted her senses. "Oh GOD, it is RANK in there! What the hell are you doing?"

Troy had done away with all the extra bunk beds in his chamber, keeping his old one. In front of his still-inactive buggy, a pair of posh office desks were arranged in an L-shape. Troy sat in a ridiculously-large padded recliner, resting his boots atop the desk closest to the door. A pair of stereo headphones dwarfed his head, continuing to spew audible death metal both while sitting atop his skull and after he plucked them off with his free hand. "...can I help you?"

"W-well, I-"

"Oh wait, no, I prefer to deal with literate people, that tends to make it easier for all parties involved." Troy raised a large book back in front of his face with the other hand.

"I'm just checking up on you, you jerk," Angie sputtered. "Derek told me about what happened on Plit. We were wondering why you didn't report back to Shambhala immediately after what happened. I'm surprised you came back on your own free will at all, and didn't go on another galactic joyride like you seem to whenever Auron isn't looking. And don't tell me off again, it's my duty to know and/or verify everyone's condition as one of the Covenant medical staff."

Troy rolled his eyes, lowering his literary barrier. "Believe it or not, I DID report what happened on Plit to Auron, and he was the one that told me to lie low for a bit... so I visited some folks in my home kingdom for a few days. Rest assured I'm done there for a long time."

"It's kind of strange to hear someone say that about their homeworld."

Troy shook his head. "...nah, it's time for me to move on. Everyone there's grown and matured so much, hell, most of my acquaintances departed on their own, oh what did you call it, 'galactic joyride'. Plit's developed, it's in good hands now. I'll always have good and bad memories about my life there, but ultimately I'm with the Covenant for the long haul. Please don't think otherwise."

"Hmm," Angie hummed. "It's kind of sad when you put it that way..."

"Bah," Troy scoffed. "I have a saying: friends are best visited, not lived with. I can live like this."

"So what are you looking at?"

Troy flopped the book down on the desk. The tome itself was far larger than the one he himself possessed. "As much as I can absorb about every little facet of my existence."

* * *

**nsx**

**THe kEy**

* * *

No one knows when or where the first keyblade was excavated, actually. There's not any even real record of when that nomenclature came about, though it seemed an inevitability when the nature of their latent forms was at least partially acknowledged. As a matter of fact, many of them already existed in the center of early societies (throughout recorded history, anyways), though their perceptions took many different forms - icons of power, divine property of royal families, raw blessings of power, etc. There are documented accounts of many of said civilizations utilizing them in manners that would suggest that their powers had, at the very least, been tapped into. Keep in mind that the Heartless and Vast have only just started to advance on worlds in the present day. The actual destructive properties the keyblades held against them would not be general knowledge for a long, long time. Who knows what happened to most of these peoples? Perhaps the keyblades played pivotal roles in their downfalls...

Not even Organization XIII knew what to make of the keyblade... most of them, anyways. It is mentioned within what remains of their documentation that one member of the Organization wielded a keyblade themselves, and exploitation of their Heartless-banishing properties was to be undertaken in order to power a scheme to regain functional hearts... whatever that entailed. That in particular didn't mean much to the Covenant; both the corrupted path to the heart and the lack of a way to activate keyblades for ourselves and others. Eventually, we would be forced to begin our own research on the keyblades. Alarmingly, as we began our own studies, we began to receive reports of worlds on which people were accidentally activating the keyblades and attuning them to themselves. It was at this moment we realized that an answer was within reach, but at the same time, we had to double our efforts to ensure that they would fall into the hands of those that would put them to benevolent use.

**THE ACTIVATION OF A KEYBLADE**

As mentioned, the keyblades have both found in deep strata of planets' crusts, in the hands of ancient civilizations, the latter then the former, or, in a surprising chain of recent events, drifting in deep space. This combined with the Organization's familiarity with the functioning of the keyblades leads us to believe their origination and utilization lies at the very least beyond the Organization's conception. We have deemed their history cannot be salvaged at this time, or the methods used to create more, until we discover relevant information. At the same time however, we do know they HAVE been used, and we are simply the next in line to command them. Who their previous owners were is unknown; perhaps we will never learn.

Obviously our first form of damage control was to determine what exactly caused the keyblades to break their hibernation and choose new masters, and prescribe said method to worlds in the hopes that the 'right' people could get them as noted. This was before we even had any known methods of discovering and tracking the sealed keyblades, however. Attempts to contact and interview novice keypers to learn about their initial experiences was a painfully awkward (and depending on their alignment and/or position of power, greatly hazardous) process. The breakthrough that allowed us a test subject was unexpected.

A chance encounter with one of our most recent inductees, one of the Tarutaru race of Vana'diel, revealed much to us. During an earlier short-term diplomatic expedition to Vana'diel, one of our other agents came across the small, impish woman camped out in a hovel outside one of their capitals. She was in a constant frenzy, very obviously feverish and suffering from bite wounds, most likely from the wild monsters that swarmed around outside of her refuge. When returned to the nearby settlement and treated for wounds of physical and mental nature over the period of a couple weeks, she began to calm and regain her sanity. When we spoke of keyblades, she seemed to perfectly understand us, offering to show us hers. It was an odd weapon, the form it had taken: a dainty, slim-handled dark-headed hammer that likely would not have harmed anyone if swung hard, even herself. Nonetheless, she was more than willing to take us to the insect-infested caverns on the south side of the city that the locals deemed 'Crawler's Nest'.

While we were hesitant to ask what happened inbetween then and now, she told us that she had been down in its depths on a previous expedition hunting for ancient artifacts, where she acted as the group's medic and white mage, one who specialized in regenerative and protective magicks. At one point she became separated from the group and stumbled upon the chamber where a keyblade lay dormant. As she explained, it had been covered in an incredibly thick, crystalline substance that exploded as she advanced upon it. Luckily, there were still fragments of the stone scattered all around the chamber, which we quickly scavenged together. In a sudden fit of zealotry, she insisted that she travel with the Covenant, in despair saying that she had nothing left to live for on Vana'diel. Some may say that we took advantage of her, but she both possessed magic that the Covenant at the time did not have access to, and she held a keyblade. We did not know exactly how well she could wield it in combat at the time, but the fact remained that she was our first stepping stone towards meaningful research. She jettisoned her old name, not distinctly remembering any meaning to it, and took on the moniker of 'Fires' as people referred to her hair more than any other of her physical features.

The crystal shards were a distinct pale, opal color, and while translucent had a smoky composition. Attempts to dismantle it further were met with failure, even with the most advanced technology that we had at our disposal via Shambhala. In fact, examining it under the finest electron microscopes revealed nothing but a continuous outside layer. Eventually we were able to confirm something that we hoped to be able to avoid.

That material was a literal super-tensile solid of Vast.

If we couldn't smash it, how could she? We had to figure out what was destabilizing the Vast. Experience had shown us that the Vast, along with the Heartless, was a living symbiote (or in the worst case, had the potential to be), so some reaction between Fires and it was confirmed as the variable. We maintained diplomatic contact with worlds we had previously visited, dispatching our members to serve as supervisors on relic hunts as they came and went. It took a great deal of work, but bit by bit we were able to witness a trickle of keypers being born, then a flood. The keyblades' bindings ran the gamut as opposed to what Fires told us, often varying in size and color - but still retaining the same physical structure.

The current hypotheses are as follows: a great amount of Vast is attracted to and accumulates over top of the keyblade as time goes on, but at the same time, they keyblade is somehow contaminating the Vast in such a way that the presence of compatible sentient life destabilizes it. From what we've been able to gather from bearing witness to many keyblade knightings, the otherwise inexplicable random color shift from regular Vast is meant to indicate this, with different colors corresponding to traits in a keyper that the keyblade desires. Say, for example, Fires' white would correspond to things like serenity/patience or apathy, red would have some kind of link to courage/ambition or rage, etc. It is for this reason that we can reason that the keyblade itself is what causes this. As frightening as it is to contemplate, the keyblades themselves are seeking out their next champions. The Vast is a living thing. Could a keyblade be one as well?...

**THE STRUCTURE OF A KEYBLADE**

Becoming attuned to a keyblade is just one piece of the looming puzzle. Putting it to good use is another, especially considering how broad the applications of such are. Similar to the Vast hive itself, the keyblade is a super-tensile solid that, to this point in time, cannot be examined via scientific physical examination. Once a keyblade is tied to someone, however, its form seems to constantly shift to the whims of its owner. While apparently the laws of conservation of energy are still in effect, the devices on the whole share paradoxes with ultra-subatomic masses currently being examined on the cutting edge of quantum mechanics. This is in effect to the point that many new keypers are utterly unable to keep their keyblades in a coherent form for any length of time, rendering them inert when, say, a Heartless is trying to eat them. This is nothing that can't be remedied with training however.

Once one can truly harness the keyblade, more interesting things begin to occur. While the keyblade's form shifts slightly to represent its new owner, it cannot actually be molded into random objects beyond its initial reconception. Rather, it takes on a binary form of A, the developed keyblade, and B, that of raw, latent energy that can be stored invisibly in the vicinity of its owner. This is what creates the illusion of a keyper drawing their weapon out of thin air, or concealing it within themselves. The keyblade retains its super-tensile properties while in the form of a weapon and is virtually indestructible.

While the keyblade can shift back and forth at the user's whim, and energy is fully conserved in the transfer, it is only possible to incur the very slightest in variations between the two. With practice it is possible to modify the ratio of energy to mass, allowing it to strike at very specific substances while having different or no effect on others. This can be used to outright ignore physical elements such as armor to strike underneath, harm a Nobody but not a Heartless or Vast, or other such effects. This goes without saying that the keyblades themselves have innate effects, such as control over the elements, healing properties, or physical and mental boons upon their wielder, but typically speaking these are not incredibly potent in nature, partly due to being powered by the wielder's willpower and/or life force. It is unknown how far these abilities could be pushed, which is especially important to note as the effects of more potentially destructive keyblades have come into public knowledge (time control, nigh-invulnerability, etc.)

The term 'keyblade' itself, however, is a little less ambiguous. Dormant keyblades take the generic form of a double-hilted axe-like weapon, with a mid-size, rounded metal shaft and a set of arranged teeth pointing off the side of its peak. As mentioned previously, this tends to fluctuate when an owner is found and 'locked in', some times more dramatically than others. Of more interest though are the varying chains that are attached to the keyblades, often themselves bearing mysterious symbols at their ends. These are likely mementos, links to their creators... ones that have been bound to the keyblades through trials and tribulations. They are the links to the past, even if we cannot mentally place them.

Their creators... how WOULD things like these be created?

**THE DOCTRINE OF A KEYBLADE**

Which raises another burning question - if anyone can just plug into their respective keyblade, generally speaking, what's there stopping them into falling into all the wrong hands? They may unusually destructive against the symbiotes, whether due to their physical properties or some other factor, but that doesn't and won't stop them from being used in the name of villainy and oppression. What can be done to prevent a situation like that?

The answer is close to nothing. If we were a government dealing with the prospect of keyblades appearing in a finite division of space and time, then that would be far simpler than the situation we are presented with now. Everywhere, every minute of every day, of every ascending unit of time, new keyblades are being unearthed. For us to attempt to police keyper conscription while considering one code of law, that's one thing, but having to deal with an endless stream of regimes is a strangling amount of red tape for us to overcome. It is possible that many worlds will eventually fall or be corrupted beyond repair by the advent of the keyblades. Some already have, either by war, accidental destruction, or disbelief in the Heartless and Vast that already seep out of every crevice of their dirt.

We work diligently towards furthering this code of honor, but it is foolhardy to believe that it is universally applicable, or that it will always succeed in ensuring that people work together toward the future. That we can save many lives is a realistic assumption, but coming to grips with the potential loss of many others is the only healthy way to look at the task we have set out to perform. Keyblades must never, ever be used as tools of war... but this is an inevitable outcome in some situations. The Covenant is to limit its use of keyblade powers with the exception that LIVES ARE IN IMMEDIATE DANGER, to help promote the belief that keyblades are the affirmative weapon against symbiotic invasion and that they are, as such, meant as tools of self-defense. To warn of incoming danger and educate these peoples, that is the best we can do. If all we manage to do is convince them of their raw power... that is the worst thing that could possibly bestow upon them.

Scientia primoris, vir secundus.

Knowledge first, heroism second.

Flagrant and excessive keyblade use, ESPECIALLY on technologically-undeveloped worlds, is cause for immediate suspension of service. Aggravated use of a keyblade causing intended death is cause for immediate expulsion if not execution. Assaulting a fellow Covenant member on the same grounds... swift death to the perpetrator. We will not be seen as hypocrites.

To those that can follow our word and work towards peace once more, godspeed. If you are not part of the solution... you are the problem.


	16. In a Dark Crevasse

(I know I'm not permitted to do author notes but as a precaution I'm asking that no one report me for this, so I'll keep this short: I've left a brief writeup on my profile regarding the state of KH canon in this story, as I've gotten some mixed feedback regarding that, especially in regard to last chapter. Also from hereon I will answer any questions/concerns via an added forum, also to be linked to in my profile.)

"Ederick."

"Ungh..."

"Ederick!"

"Wh.. what? Where-"

"EDERICK!"

"Huh?!" Troy suddenly sprang up. He found himself sitting in bed. No, he was in A bed... one that was very much not his. He gazed about in a stunned stupor, soaking in the environment as it came into focus. He was in a small room that tortured his eyes further, its surfaces held together by panels of gleaming white metal. A simple desk of a similar shade had a bizarre, hovering chair at it, while its tops were covered with papers and decorative stones. The spartan bed he lied on suddenly became a lot less comfortable as he raised his hand.

It was Ederick's. He looked at his other, and in a fit of panic turned towards a the desk mirror. There was no denying it - he was Ederick.

"Where am I? What's going on?!" Troy shouted to no one in particular. He was suddenly spun at the waist as hands grappled onto his shoulders and pulled him in their direction. The figure in front of him faded into view slower than the rest of the room. It was a young woman, slightly above Ederick's height, draped in a simple, loose black gown. What was visible of her stockings was a tinged grey, with a single red ring below each knee. Her heavy boots were adorned with metal spikes in seemingly random locations, and were obviously steel-toed. Finally Troy managed to gaze into her hollow black eyes, suddenly becoming enchanted more by the red hair that billowed out behind her, even after being tied back. "Who-"

"Ederick. Wake up. We have to go."

"But wh-"

"It's me, Ameile."

* * *

**nsx**

**in a dark crevasse**

* * *

"Listen, we have to get out of here. Something incredibly bad has happened..."

"Ameile?!" Troy-Ederick snapped. "You're the Ameile? Listen, Ederick-" He was suddenly interrupted by a vicious slap to the face.

"Ederick, get a hold of yourself! It's a good thing you were napping in your clothes, because we have to leave, NOW!"

Troy-Ederick let out a yelp as Ameile latched onto his wrist, dragging him spinning off the bed. The door to the chamber phased out of existence as Ameile drug him through it, Troy-Ederick stumbling behind her as she ran. "Um, er, Amiele, what's happening? Everyone is in a panic..." he looked around the expansive hall as the two jaunted through it, similar to the chamber he had just exited - asides from the random blasts of siren sound and red light, along with the mortally wounded people left and right. Troy-Ederick's face twisted as he began to notice what was happening - many were still writing in agony as they were being consumed by small blobs of thick, black paste. "...Heartless?!"

"Heartless?" Ameile scowled. "I WISH it were the Heartless! It's found us, Ederick, we have to get out of here before it's too late! We have to reach Valgrind!"

"What do you mean, 'it?'" Troy-Ederick finally broke free of her grip, causing the two to lurch to a stop.

"It's found us. The Great Dark. It's not the Heartless, or Nobodies, or the Heart-creators... it's the absence of all three."

Troy-Ederick's stomach shifted. "...that's what's causing all this?"

"If you want to sit around here and blab that's fine by me," Ameile shouted. "But... you heard what we've been told. To be consumed by non-existence... to have never existed... it's a fate much, much worse than death." The emphasis on the final words made Troy-Ederick's blood flow hiccup. "Now will you just shut up and-" both her and Troy-Ederick lost balance as the ground shifted from an explosion. The ceiling caved in a short distance away, and a beast plunged down from above with a roaring crash. As Troy gazed on he felt his limbs contract again. It was no mere symbiote that marched out of the debris, but a winged, demonic figure, unsettling far beyond any Primal hive he'd set eyes upon. "LET'S GO!!"

Troy-Ederick was now fully in step with Ameile as they both fled in the opposite direction. A deathly shriek followed them down the corridor as the monster opened its cavernous maw and let loose near-constant blasts of its gelatinous projectiles at the two. Ameile suddenly found herself falling behind Troy-Ederick, letting out a yelp as one of the ooze bolts struck her ankle. Troy-Ederick screeched to a halt as he spun around, tearing Ameile off the floor again as another barrage struck down where she was.

"Ederick-"

"I don't care if you're the girlfriend of my jerkass alter-ego, I'm not leaving you to die!"

"What?"

The two rushed into a larger circular room. Translucent rings around the antechamber suddenly lit up as the ground dropped out from underneath them, causing them to fly by at a dizzying pace. An elevator was taking them down. "What do we do now? Ameile?" Troy winced in shock as he heard the faint burning sizzle - the patch that the Dark struck was now beginning to erode her ankle into nonexistence. "Oh, no!"

"Hack it off!" Ameile barked.

"What?!"

"Amputate! Slash it down before it spreads to both of us!"

Troy-Ederick dropped her to the ground with a thud, backing up as she shifted into position. "Now!!"

"With what? And you just want me to-"

"YES! U-use my keyblade! Please!"

Troy-Ederick found his hand stirring as the Chronicle formed in it, wincing as the keyblade's teeth began to vibrate back and forth violently. "U-uh, okay, I just..." he raised it above his head.

"Stop hesitating!" Ameile scowled, reeling back and letting out a cry of pain. "I can manage!!"

Troy-Ederick took a deep breath and swung the edge down, severing Ameile's leg just above the ankle. He felt his stomach churn as a sizable amount of blood exploded onto, and then started leaking to, the floor.

"GRRRNNGGHHGH-AAAHHHH!!" Ameile clasped onto the stump as hard as she could. With a burst of light, the dreaded burning was overtaken by a slightly more benevolent variety, and her wound was replaced by a rounded cauterization of flesh. "O-okay-y! That's been prevented... now, go!"

"...white magic...?" Troy-Ederick sighed to himself as the elevator continued plummeting. "...no, you're not implying that-"

"Go without m..." she trailed off as she found herself being hoisted up by Troy-Ederick. "...I guess I c-couldn'tve expected much else... let's... go. I'm going to be a drag, I hope you realize."

"Not while I keep pestering you for directions," Troy-Ederick grumbled. "What's our objective and how do we get there?"

"Down more... ahhh!... levels, to Valgrind... 32. Sora will be likely waiting for us there."

"...Sora? Who's Sora?"

Ameile stared dumbly at Troy-Ederick. "I'm sorry, have you caught the stupids since I left you last night? You've been asking a lot of weird questions lately. Sora? There aren't a lot of Soras around. That straggler that's training you how to use your keyblade so I don't have to share access with mine all the bloody time? THAT Sora? That's pretty well buddy-buddy with the keypers around here and helps in every little thing they do and every little place they go? That squash the Dark? Well, not squashing it well enough if our current scenario is any indication, but you get the picture."

TE and Ameile turned their gaze to the wall as the elevator slammed down. The wall tore open, and a door was opened to a great hall that lied beyond. Both were horrified at what they saw - every entryway into the vestibule was barricaded with broken crates, ruined pillars, and whatever remained of the local furniture, but still, the walls around them were in a state of constant decay. The invading substance continued to eat its way through the infrastructure, beginning to lap across the floor to where several dozen armored guards were furiously trying to sweep away what they could with keyblades of their own, or more dominantly, varying energy rifles. That wasn't what truly got TE's attention however.

"What in the hell..." TE's head slowly began to tilt backwards.

As gigantic as the hall was in area, it was nothing compared to its height. Viewpoints and passages from the higher levels seemed to stretch into the heavens, all seeming to aim at the far end of the hall. There lied a colossal double-door, at the very least several hundred meters high, and wide enough to take a convoy through. It was painted from top to bottom with bizarre runes that glowed with an eerie blue light, that alone being a feat with the ambient luminescence of the room. All along the center division were locking mechanisms from the medieval to the mechanical, to the modern to the futuristic, all dismantling themselves in sequence as another enormous group of escapees fought over top of each other to reach it. TE was snapped out of his splendor as an energy blast struck the wall behind him.

"Watch where you point that frickin' thing!" TE yelled.

"S-sorry!" one of the shivering guards spat. "Quickly, get to the back, we'll have it open quickly! If you don't get through then, then there's nothing we can do for you!"

"Great," Ameile grunted as Troy bounded over top of the wall of debris. "Everything's taken care of, then. Once we get inside we should be safe."

"Inside?"

"There's no time to discuss it, we have to get through before Valgrind is resealed. Damn it all, I wish it hadn't come down to this... Sora isn't even here as far as I can tell, who knows what happened to him? He's not the kind of person that would get left behi-"

TE bumbled to a stop as the sound of a buzzsaw shot through his human ears. He peered over his shoulder, fully pivoting in shock as he examined what was happening. Darkness was already pouring through the elevator shaft they had just come out of, but it was uprooted briefly as a spinning projectile ripped along the ground and spun around the area in several wide arcs before soaring back to its caster's hand. It was the simplest of keyblades, even less decorated than the Chronicle, but with the distinct shape of a pronged crown inlaid to create the key's teeth. What was more important, however, was the aura it exuded, splitting the very fear in the room with its radiance. All at once, it seemed that everyone behind the shielding was working exponentially faster.

"Ederick? What are you waiting for?" Ameile cried.

Sora's head turned and TE got his first full examination free of flying slime. The man was easily into his late twenties if not early thirties, but still carried with him a head of jagged, rebellious chestnut hair and soft blue eyes that bobbed along even as he shook the living daylights out of TE. Sora was draped in a faded orange vest, white flame embroidered along its bottom, that covered a white undershirt. A long, oversized belt held up a pair of baggy shorts of the same design, with flames riding up the left leg sleeve. "Ederick? EDERICK? What's going on here, it's only been, what, 10 minutes since I got word that the base was under attack and this is what I walk into? Are you alright? Ameile?!"

"D-don't worry about me," Ameile winced. "Only a flesh wound. I can get a prothesis nerve-buckled easily enough, right now we... well, have a bit of an emergency. The Dark... it just, just... burst! One of our bulkheads just up and blew, no one even knew any ounce of pressure was there. After that... it was a chain reaction, people were buried in the crap left and right. Most of the station is getting immolated by the Dark at this point; we got as many people as we could to Valgrind as possible. It's a disaster here! We have to get the survivors inside and seal the main prison dimension gate before we lose any more!"

"Unbelievable..." Sora snarled, turning to face the advancing sludge. Even TE winced hearing the sudden hit to Sora's valor in his voice. "...unbelievable! Listen, you two have to get through before that gate closes, I'll take up the rear and try to give the evacuees as much time as possible! Meanwhile I-" Sora suddenly froze. "Riku. Where's Riku?"

"Riku is with one of the escort craft just on the other side!" the guard from earlier shouted back. "He and the remainder of the officers are running finalizing logistics and launch diagnostics on the transport machinery! He's out of harm's way for now, but we're going to have to give up our foothold here eventually!"

"Which waypoint is Valgrind aimed at?"

"NSX, sir!"

TE was suddenly jolted out of step. "Eh?"

Sora prepared a response to the other soldier, but instead glared back at TE and Ameile, shooing them off. "What are you waiting for? GO!!"

"Ungh..." Troy ground his teeth as he hunched down and took off towards the foreboding doors ahead, feeling his heart race as the sounds of combat rose back to a thundering crescendo behind him. Meanwhile the gate's failsafes finally came crashing down with noises industrial and electronic, and the rift began to swing open. As Troy plowed through the crowd and towards the growing sliver of light, he looked over his shoulder one last time. Sora continued to stand his ground as the other armed guards around him began to succumb to the Dark's pressuring advance. With one last burst of energy, TE leapt through the opening into mystery.

* * *

Troy stood in the middle of his Shambhala chamber, bedsheets thrown all over the floor. He continued wheezing to himself, shaking the clamminess out of his limbs as he slowly readjusted to the waking world. Finally managing to regain his breath, he expanded his chest and yelled at the top of his lungs.

"EDERICK!!"

Troy hacked for another moment, having suddenly deprived himself of air again. He keeled over grunting as he pushed forward through the door to the brightly-lit lobby. He ran by Knuckles and Siegfried, who sat hunched on the sofas as they played cards over a folding table. "EDERIIIIICK!!"

"Now what's wrong with that damned idiot..." Siegfried rumbled.

"Troy? What the hell... TROY! What's wrong?" Knuckles leapt after him, but moments too late - the door to Outer Shambhala crashed shut again, somewhere where his individual perceived entrance to Shambhala wouldn't let him pursue. Knuckles slammed his clenched fist against the door, austere enough in its appearance but still impenetrable. "Grrr!!"

Troy stumbled and tripped down his crude hallway, finally bursting out into the lonely white space. He took a deep breath and yelled into the void again with all his might. "EDERICK!! Come out damn it, I know you're there somewhere!"

Ederick phased into step behind him. "It's about time you figured it out. Idiot."

Troy twisted around to face him. "Figured out? You mean-"

"That you can't summon me within the enclosed confines of this... Shambhala. It's as your friends say, the mental composition of each room is controlled either by the facility's mechanisms or by their owners' minds. As long as anyone or anything is still subconsciously believing in your own existence and not mine, Shambhala will enforce that. As such, I carry no control and therefore can't manifest in any form. In regular or unregulated space however-"

"Screw that!" Troy's face suddenly thrust into Ederick's. "The dreams... the dream! About the dream..."

"...the what?" Ederick said flatly.

Troy's palm slammed into Ederick's chest, his wrist suddenly twisting and yanking the two closer to each other. "Ameile. I saw Ameile."

For the first time as far as Troy knew, Ederick's stance faltered and his face turned pallid. "Ehhh?? Why the hell am I supposed to believe things you say when I can't remember anything about MYSELF?"

"The Sword of the Timeless Eye. Dark eyes, red hair, black gothic lolita clothing. Seems to be a bit of a bitch but otherwise cares greatly about your wellbeing."

"AAANNghhh!!" Ederick fell backwards out of Troy's grasp, his body contorting as he clutched his head. "How are you... these images are grinding their way into my head! It's excruciating but at the same time, things are falling into place! Have you as my Nobody form developed enough to begin to decipher these things?!"

"I... you were running from symbiotes on crack. The Dark everyone called it. We only one step ahead of it the whole time. It wasn't attacking people... it was outright devouring them. Ameile guided me, uh, us through the whole place we were in, I still can't figure out where we even WERE, but it was a gigantic compound of some kind. The Dark just kept coming and coming, I can't even know if it was the air around it or the sound it made, it outright curdled my blood to witness. Ameile kept hassling me along, but I drug her with me. She guided me to this huge-ass door in the basement, or was it the basement?... I dunno. That's how big the place was. We-"

"Get on with it!!" Ederick growled.

"...Valgrind." Troy finished. "Valgrind, that big door to nowhere as far as I knew... but we were pressured by the Dark. Ameile told me that we had to get 'inside'. What we were outside of... we were outside of, I, I don't know what to really make of it, or how it could be true, but... they mentioned that behind that door was NSX."

"PPPGHHHH-" Ederick collapsed to the ground, writhing in anguish. "E-everything... I don't know why, but it's pouring into me, clear as day. That span of time, that escape! If everything that happened then is true, then... Sora! I have to know what happened to Sora! Even Riku!" Ederick was back on one knee, focusing a scowling stare at Troy. "You have to keep reexamining this, if I can learn more about everyone's whereabouts, then Ameile-"

"Hang on, I took Ameile THROUGH that door, she could be anywhere on that side, what would Sora-"

"Please, Troy..." Ederick shuddered as he tried to push himself back to his feet. "I understand that we haven't been on the most amicable of terms since I first contacted you, but if working together we could figure out what put me in this condition, WHY I'm in this condition, what happened that day... I would be eternally grateful."

"I'll do it."

"Whah?" Ederick coughed.

Troy crouched down to Ederick, now staring his own brand of daggers into the wounded soldier. "Oh, don't mistake me. I'm not doing it for you, it's just that I realize I'm about to do is going to benefit you in one way or another. What that lucid dream DID accomplish was the revival of a lot of questions I already had. Now tell me what you know about this memory process of yours, what did you mean by 'reexamining'?"

"I didn't do anything to invoke that dream, Troy. Now that they've started, however, they're going to return. Bit by bit, piece by piece, you'll be replaying my memories, and apparently I can piece them together as you bring them up... the process of rebuilding is a painful and inefficient one by far though, and you might even run into the same event multiple times. Sort of a reverse deja vu."

"One thing I don't get about that though," Troy interjected. "I said it was a lucid dream. I had full control over myself, but that was YOUR memory."

"Undoubtedly conflict between your psyche and mine. Conceivably you could manipulate the dream, but not to an extent that fully undermines its presence as a memory."

"So technically speaking I could do whatever I want but the final outcome would be the same."

"You're not as dumb as you look." Ederick scoffed.

Troy folded his arms, turning his annoyed gaze away from Ederick. "I guess I'd better get some sleep on this... well, going to sleep is only going to complicate matters for myself if this is any indication, but I can't rest until I... heh, the irony, sleeping only makes me more tired. Who would've thought?"

* * *

"Ederick."

TE's eyes flashed open as he sat up. "Ameile!" He put all his strength into his abs, lifting his legs up and using the momentum to propel himself off the bed. "What's happening? It's the Dark, isn't it?"

"Ede-AHH!" Ameile ducked out of the way to avoid getting smashed by TE's stray arm. "Y-yes! Ederick, get a hold of yourself! It's a good thing you were napping in your clothes, because we have to leave, NOW!"

"I gotcha," TE was already across the room, rummaging through the desk's contents. He scanned the covers and initial pages of books, individual documents and pamphlets that laid heaped in the desk drawers.

"What are you doing?!" Ameile screeched. "We have to get out of here!"

"On it!" TE dumped the scriptures back into the drawer, slamming it shut. _I don't even need to digest the contents of these as long as I've glanced over them, if Ederick's reaction to what I explained earlier was any indication, then as long as I have the cliffs notes he can fill in the blanks!_ "Let's move!" TE clamped his hand down on Ameile's wrist, dragging her out of the room as he began to pick up speed. The two carried on into the hallway, it and its summoned guards already corroded with Dark residue.

"It's found us, Ederick, we have to get out of here before it's too late! We have to reach Valgrind!"

"What does the Dark want from us?"

"...what?"

"Answer me!!"

"It... you want me to give you a goddamn history lesson while getting chased by reality-eating aliens?! We don't know, we're just the Sanctum branch of this galaxy! This crap has been bearing down on us for a while now and we've had no way of exterminating it and it just kept-"

"Sanctum?"

"Symbiote police! We're trying to cleanse more worlds, to return to Kingdom Hearts, find the World Terminus so we don't have to scramble people every few minutes to fend off Heartless or Nobodies and figure out what those crazy Heart-creators want with us and-"

"Vast?! What is th- WATCH OUT!" TE suddenly surged forward, trying to evade one of the flying globules. He winced as it struck Ameile's ankle, causing her to shriek in pain. TE growled as he pushed himself the last few yards to the elevator, nearly crashing into the opening doors. TE dropped Ameile to the ground as the elevator platform picked up speed and the Chronicle flashed into his hand. "...hold still."

"Wait, wh-YAAAUUGHH!!" Ameile screamed out the last cry as the keyblade lopped her foot off with frightening accuracy. She followed the same procedure as before, if a little unprepared, and quickly sealed the otherwise crippling wound. "WHAT THE... hpphh- HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"You knew it was going to happen." TE grunted.

"Well I... I, but... how did you know I was going to ask-"

"We're going to Valgrind. What the hell is Valgrind?"

"You've only been through Valgrind a few times... it's the giant phasegate transit system at the heart of our Vanaheim station, the one we use to travel to the prison dimension waypoints. They're where research is conducted on Heartless and Nobody specimens. We have to find how to stop them, and the dark, by whatever means... new keyblades are not being created fast enough!"

_Creating keyblades?_ TE was jerked out of thought as the elevator crashed down to its final floor. As he helped Ameile off the ground, the two pivoted to face the looming doors of Valgrind once more, and the zone in front of it was very much the same as his first visit. TE quickly strode into the midst, shielding himself and Ameile behind debris as he moved. He shifted behind one of the guards as they continued to blast away at the Dark from afar.

"Sora is on his way, hold the line!" TE shouted.

"Wha?"

No sooner did the confused words escape the man's lips, the advancing wave of the Dark was ripped asunder by the mysterious regal keyblade hurtling thorugh the air. It returned to Sora's hand as he began his predicted advance upon Valgrind. TE, however, forgot about his shoulder-shaking. "Ederick? EDERICK? What's going on here, it's only been, what, 10 minutes since I got word that the base was under attack and this is what I walk into? Are you alright? Ameile?!"

"D-don't worry about me," Ameile winced. "Only a flesh wound. I can get a prothesis nerve-buckled easily enough, right now we... well, have a bit of an emergency. The Dark... it just, just... burst! One of our bulkheads just up and blew, no one even knew any ounce of pressure was there. After that... it was a chain reaction, people were buried in the crap left and right. Most of the station is getting immolated by the Dark at this point; we got as many people as we could to Valgrind as possible. It's a disaster here! We have to get the survivors inside and seal the main prison dimension gate before we lose any more!"

"Unbelievable..." Sora snarled, turning to face the advancing sludge. Even after having heard the entire conversation word for word before, TE couldn't quite help but shudder as the three gazed upon the advancing creepage. "...unbelievable! Listen, you two have to get through before that gate closes, I'll take up the rear and try to give the evacuees as much time as possible! Meanwhile I-" Sora suddenly froze. "Riku. Where's Riku?"

"Riku is with one of the escort craft just on the other side!" the guard from earlier shouted back. "He and the remainder of the officers are running finalizing logistics and launch diagnostics on the transport machinery! He's out of harm's way for now, but we're going to have to give up our foothold here eventually!"

_Alright, time for plan A._

TE stepped forward, fist clenched and head held high. "Please, I need one of the men to get Ameile to safety! I'll work with Sora to buy all of you some more time! Let me go so that others survive!"

"Ederick," Sora grumbled. "Are you crazy? You're barely an adept with a keyblade and you haven't even been able to synthesize your own yet, what do you expect to do?"

"I'll use the Chronicle!" TE summoned the weapon to his grasp, unwittingly clenching it tighter than he could remember. "As long as people believe in me... no, as long as Ameile believes in me, and realizes that I'll do everything in my power to come back safely to her... she will grant me permission to carry this!"

One of the men took Ameile's weight onto his shoulder, moving her to the Valgrind door as TE fell in line with Sora.

"Ederick..." Sora mumbled. "You... what you're doing is pretty stupid, but at the same time, your bravery is commendable..."

TE took a deep breath, preparing to bluff his way through the next statement as stealthily as possible. "I will fight for Sanctum to the bitter end, Sora. For people to no longer live in fear of the civil war between the Heartless... the Vast... and the Va.. Heart-creators, I'll never surrender for anything. I hope you're thinking the same?"

"So many people have tried to abuse or take advantage of that for their own gain..." Sora said softly. The two met back to back, their respective weapons drawn, as Dark began to rapidly seep through the barricade. "The Sanctum is not the Organization. They have dedicated themselves to ending this stalemate, and people like myself have done everything in their power to ensure that they never regress into power-thirst. To hear those words coming out of someone's mouth besides mine or Riku's, that pumps me up!"

A crushing blast tore out from the elevator door, a wall of dust roaring along with it. The wall of the shaft crumbled as the Dark creature burst through, the same abyssal figure that he had encountered in the first iteration of the dream. Its face bisected horizontally as it let loose a hellish scream that assaulted TE's senses. Still, he stood his ground, seeming to flinch as little as Sora. _I can't explain this feeling... it's just like, standing around this guy, my fear's completely dulled out..._ TE, while ruminating, noticed little as his movements began to mirror Sora's. He pivoted his left leg to the back, sweeping his keyblade over and behind his shoulder while he kept his eyes focused on the monster. The hideous construct began to lumber at them.

Sora swatted stray bolts of Dark away from him with mere gestures of his weapon, but otherwise kept his stance intact. "Ederick, we can't possibly keep something like that at bay in melee... we have to make a single, swift strike in order to disable it. Follow my movements, I need you to back me up if I miss the shot."

"The shot? What are you-" TE froze as he watched Sora's entire body flash forward, his arms snapping in front of him and hurling his keyblade through the air. It ignited in a bright white light, adjusting its trajectory in midair in an effort to lop at the beast's thick neck. Sora's face twisted as the beast's gigantic claws flashed up, shattering the projectile and forcing its physical incarnation to fly to a clatter at his feet. "N-No way, ED! TAKE THE SHOT, IT'S UNDEFENDED WHERE-"

"I-I got it!" TE stared in confusion at the Chronicle, which was beginning to take on the same appearance. His eyes fluttered to the exposed section of the monster's throat, and he found himself leaping forward to let the weapon fly. "STRRRRIKE... RAIDDD!!"

The blade of light flew at an even greater velocity, not striking dead on but still lancing deep through the stumpy protrusion. What happened then, however, was just as disorienting as its advance. Troy choked as he gazed upon the exit wound, jetting not more darkness... but instead, thick, gooey blood. TE's legs began to shake, the grip of Sora's morale on him beginning to waver.

"Quit giving it attention!" Sora shouted, punching TE hard in the shoulder. "What you're seeing isn't its true form... it's trying to play off your emotions, your humanity! We're out of time, you have to get through Valgrind before those doors shut for good! I'll keep this thing off all your backs while the evac finishes!"

"Wheh?! But you-"

"GO!!" Sora shoved TE away, causing him to stumble backwards into the crowd. The human cushioning gave away from under him, and he found himself getting drug along with the chaos as it finally began to seep at a consistent rate through the ominous crevice between the two doors. TE constantly tried to fight his way back through the doors, but found himself losing ground from the guards and the rapidly-constricting horde.

"SORA!!"

TE wasn't able to gather as much as a glance at the rear of the keyper as Valgrind cut them off. TE, with all his strength, rammed his way out of the gigantic cluster of people with one shoulder, stammering and stumbling to regain his balance as he finally reclaimed a modicum of personal real estate. The room he stood in was virtually identical to the one he had just come out of, albeit with an irritating electricity in the air that seemed to poke at his sinuses. That was merely the beginning of his problems though. It seemed that every light in the room was at lease doubly as bright as the pre-Valgrind chamber, but that was just meant to distract him long enough for what was to follow.

He could only see a few dozen feet in front of him. From thereon, the environment tapered away almost artificially and collapsed to a dark beyond black. TE could only stand staring directly into the void for so long, feeling an aural dread begin to surround him. There was only the most recent people ahead and behind him visible. Any others that would have traveled through the welcoming doors were absent, having been swallowed up by some other force that TE couldn't place a bead on.

He was being watched. From all directions.

What was terrifying about that more than anything else was that it wasn't a swarm of anything. It was a continuous entity, and its presence began to constrict TE's breath in a pure, unadulterated anxiety attack. Just when he thought he could no longer force another gasp of stale air into his chest... it was over.

* * *

The door to Outer Shambhala opened once more, and Troy struck out into the whiteness once more, very visibly shaken. He shrugged off the shivering as he continued his march out into nothingness. Troy crouched down, eventually losing cohesion and sitting entirely on his behind. Ederick already advanced from his flank.

"I was just about thinking you'd never come back." Ederick chuckled. "What's it been.. a week?"

"...Ederick."

"Yes?"

"This keyper sect thing isn't new, is it? Every time I've ran around wherever the hell you were, talked with Sanctum, been thrown back into that mad escape now and then... all this yakking about finding some end to what the Heartless and Nobodies, and what I figure is the Vast, are doing. I'm always seeing people with keyblades. Not all of them mind you, a lot are still carrying guns and other such big sticks, but there's a lot of effort going into supplying people with keyblades. Actually, no. I vaguely remember Ameile and this Sora person talking about CREATING keyblades. So let's summarize..."

"Shoot." Ederick droned.

"These people... you were once in the same situation we are now, screwing around with the symbiotes and having to fight them off while trying to figure out a way to stop them in the long term. Sanctum rounded up a bunch of keypers and worked towards that. But, all you guys are way more advanced than any of us, even moreso than the Covenant... obviously you had a bunch of influential keypers on your side, this Sora being one of them, and I imagine... Riku? I only heard the name a couple of times. Anyways, YOU were one of Sora's disciples, or proteges, or whatever. You fought and fought, but I don't know if you actually got anywhere or not because of this dark stuff rising on the scene. Apparently it's volatile beyond all measurement and corrodes its way through energy and matter itself. Everyone implied it was a process of total annihilation..."

"And what exactly are you getting at?"

"I'm not getting at anything to be honest, I'm just trying to piece together crap and only getting more questions as a result. Then again, that's how this whole adventure's been up to this point so I'm hardly surprised anymore. Eventually I rummaged through your paperwork on the way out to Valgrind one time, knowing that I didn't actually have to understand any of it." Troy tapped an index finger to his skull, passing a smirk to Ederick. "We only use a fraction of our noggins, so while I could never possibly have a proper recognition of it myself in the future given the amount of time I spent reading it, everything would be stored there for the current you to brush up on and fill in the blanks."

"Nnnngh..." Ederick clutched his forehead, now throbbing with pain. He was growing to withstand the sudden infusions of information. "...this entity, they refer to it as Abyss. The Great Dark. From preliminary examination, it's only supposed to exist in spatial regions where there is a vacuum of the other three symbiotic lifeforms."

Troy paced by him. "Of course, there's nothing I can gather beyond that; when and where it was first created or discovered, how long they've known about it, its strengths and weaknesses, crap like such. What you had stored away was just an informational package as far as what to do if it was sighted in a crowded place. I think figuring more out about it is beyond the scope of what you've witnessed... all I know is that whatever it is, it's SERIOUS. While I can kind of bend the memory a bit so I can squeeze information out of people or do things I didn't, the end results are always the same. The Abyss itself though, whenever I got close to it, it... felt like my heart was getting squeezed right out of my chest. There's something about it that is utterly horrifying, excruciating and chilling to the bone. That keyblades seem to be the only things that can cut through it doesn't offer much comfort."

"Mmmhm..." Ederick watched as Troy continued to fidget about.

"But the keyblades!" Troy suddenly whipped around. "What Sora said about you not being able to properly synthesize a keyblade... don't tell me these people MANUFACTURED keyblades!"

"I can tell you right now that it's not that simple. Otherwise you would have both seen more people with them."

"That's a good point... from what information I gave you, do you have any recollection of anything Sora told you about them? Any journals, notes, anything? I have to figure out more about this-"

"Not that I've been able to rebuild from what you told me."

"Grrr..." Troy turned away again, massaging his temples with his palms. "NSX. What about NSX? I keep hearing that people are getting to NSX through Valgrind. It's a prison dimension where research was carried out on the three symbiotes, but that in mind, why do I keep hearing it in the present? Something is totally messed up here. What do the Nepenthes know about it? WHY do they know about it? Did something that happened then lead to the foundation of the Nepenthes in some roundabout way?"

"...there's something that's bothering me."

"That's bothering YOU? Walk a mile in my shoes."

"No, I mean..." Ederick turned a worried gaze to Troy. "...you were able to utilize a keyblade technique that you had no earlier knowledge of. From what I've been able to gather, it was something that Sora would have passed on to me."

"What are you suggesting?" Troy sputtered.

"That and how your recollections have been causing me less and less pain... our collective memories might be bleeding together. In that case, it'll become easier as time goes on for you to transfer them to me and vice versa. At the same time though-"

"What?"

"...you'll be affected by my experiences much more harshly. Emotions will become more intensified, pain will greatly increase. We may be reaching a shift in risk versus reward."

"Any step towards solving all these mysteries is worth the risk."

Ederick flinched. "I know this goes against my earlier threats, but I can work to seal myself off from you for the time being such that you won't have these recurring dreams-"

"No. Let them ride." Troy commanded.

* * *

"Riku. Where's Riku?"

TE had followed the typical chain of events and now found himself back in the Valgrind chamber, a panicking Sora clamping down onto his shoulders with vice-like force. The battle continued all around him, Ameile having been taken through the massive doors by soldiers as their companions fought to the death to hold the line.

"H-He's inside," TE suddenly spat. "Riku's taking care of one of the transport craft inside, he and, uh, other dudes are running preparations and logamamithrics on the... vehicles."

Sora stared dully at TE.

"...don't worry about him, he's fine, right now we have to get as many people through these doors as we can, people are being taken to NSX as we speak!"

"Then what are you waiting for? GO!"

TE fought back against Sora's shove. "Sora... I know I've learned a lot from you about handling keyblades, but one of these days I'll have to stop relying on Ameile and her keyblade so much. One of these days, I'll eventually have to complete mine... as one of your disciples, I have one last thing to ask of you before I potentially leave you to your devices one last time. When, how, why, will I be entrusted with a keyblade of my own?"

Sora turned his back to his student. "There's nothing more I can teach you actually."

"Wha?!"

"Ederick, your heart has to stay strong. No matter what life throws at you and what hardships you endure, you gotta remain true to yourself and your friends, always. It's only when you fully embrace yourself and others, and you work selflessly towards promoting true hope, courage and companionship that you'll really your heart's power. You have confidence in those around you, and they express faith in you in return. I think the day that you'll finally achieve your goals and become a true keyper isn't far off."

"...thank you, Sora."

"Now get moving," Sora grumbled. "I'll cover you!"

TE turned to the door and started his run, mumbling under his breath. "Well, that was a bust."

* * *

"This is all meaningless, what does he expect me to... no. Wait, where did I hear something like this before?" Troy mused briefly before brightening up with a snap of his finger. "...right! When I spoke with Bob back on Plit he was telling me about how he was watching over Peach, saying that she was close to the boundary of experiencing true emotion and becoming a candidate for a successful heart infusion. There has to be some connections here, something tying together the Vast encasing the discovered keyblades, what Bob said and Sora's words."

"Don't you think you're stretching this a bit far?" Ederick scoffed.

"That's another thing I've been meaning to ask you," Troy gyrated back to Ederick, hands on his hips. "You outright jumped out of the woodwork when I was about to open the door to Peach's bedroom that time. You knew there was Vast behind that door, but its aura was totally different than any Vast I'd encountered."

"I don't know of its intent any more than you do... idiot. I was trying to save both our hides."

"So why have you never saved my ass in any other case since I left Plit? Either there's another hidden memorial trigger that made you fly off the handle and attempt to overpower me or you're still hiding things from me. Try to defend yourself all you want but that's an assumption I've learned to have at the ready." Troy slowly slumped down into a crouch, eventually collapsing onto his rear, and finally his back.

"Are you alright?"

"This is all meaningless," Troy wheezed. "What are we doing, trying to make sense of this all by ourselves... all we have is this tiny little fragment of your memory to work on and we can't do anything while everyone is freaking out and running away from us to Valgrind, if only there were some way I could access some other moment of time that's stuck in your head... or, better yet, if we knew anyone that escaped into NSX that we..."

A dead silence filled the void again.

"THAT'S IT!" Troy suddenly catapaulted back onto his feet. "We find someone that escaped into NSX!"

"I'm not following."

"I just have to force myself to stay in the dream after I'm through Valgrind and it closes! Every time I've been down at Valgrind, someone always talks about how this Riku dude, some friend of Sora's, is on the other side helping people get set up for heading deeper into NSX! I just have to find out who he is and where he's situated and hopefully I can squeeze some more info out of him! I just hope that what happened last time doesn't occur again..."

"Did I miss something?" Ederick sighed quizically.

"I got through that door and there was nothing there. Well, a few people, but the path just emptied out into darkness and it felt like there was a zillion needles stabbing into me and that something out there was just staring at me from every possible angle. To be honest... I was having a little difficulty breathing when I suddenly woke up. Was probably just lying in a funky position at some point that night."

Ederick continued his annoyed stare. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Troy was already on his way back to the Shambhala door, shaking his head weakly. "Nope."

* * *

"Now get moving," Sora grumbled. "I'll cover you!"

TE nodded solemnly to Sora, turning to gaze upwards at the towering gate. Taking a deep breath, he began his jaunt to the crevice in the wall where the remaining evacuees finished filtering through. Stopping himself from taking one last glance at Sora, TE slipped through the gap in the architecture with the armwaving of the anxious guards there. He turned towards the unknown, leapt forward - and again stumbled to a halt. He found himself clutching his chest as he moved along, finding himself in the same world of darkness as his last passage through Valgrind. As he reached the end of the lit pathway, he squinted to gaze out into the void.

"Ameile? You out here somewhere?... Riku? ARGH!" TE took a deep breath. "IS ANYONE OUT THE-GHCGHCGH-" TE dropped to one knee as he found himself again short of breath. His vision blurred slightly, the ambient buzzing beginning to vanish. "Where am I? Is this NSX?!"

**SUCH A VAIN CREATURE.**

"Wha?" Troy spun around, losing his footing and falling back on his rear. He quickly spun about to face back into the night. "Who's there?!"

**AM I NOT WHO YOU SEEK?**

"Riku? Buddy? That you?" TE laughed nervously.

**AM I NOT WHAT YOU HAVE SOUGHT FOR SO LONG? WHAT YOU DESIRED TO REACH BEYOND THE VEIL FOR?**

"Dude, totally not funny. I mean, this is a dude, isn't-" TE erupted into another coughing fit.

**TO INTERFERE IN MATTERS BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING? TO TREAD UPON SANCTIFIED GROUND? TO PIERCE THE SOUL?**

**TO PEER INTO THE DARK CREVASSE?**

**TO HAVE IT GAZE BACK UPON YOU?**

**KINGDOM HEARTS...**

Troy was on all fours, wheezing violently. "I-huh-please, I-huh-"

**TROY...**

"How... d-do you know..."

**IT IS HERE THAT EDERICK... AMEILE... MANY SUPPOSEDLY BRAVE SOULS WERE STRUCK DOWN... EVERYONE EDERICK EVER CARED FOR, BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE MIGHTY DIMENSIONAL GATE VALGRIND, HAVE NOW BEEN SMOTE TO FRAGMENTS OF THEIR MIGHTY SELVES AND REDUCED TO THE VERY FORMS THAT THEY TREATED AS HINDERANCES, PARASITES, SUBSENTIENCE. SHOULD YOU RAISE YOURSELF UP ON A PEDESTAL, IT IS THE FATE YOU SHALL SHARE, TROY.**

**I WILL HUMOR YOU THIS: THE ONES YOU KNOW AS SORA AND RIKU STILL EXIST IN YOUR TIMEFRAME AND HAVE SHOWN INCREDIBLE RESILIENCE TO MY PUNISHMENT. WHETHER THEY ARE UP TO YOUR STANDARDS OF EXISTENCE, HOWEVER... THAT IS FOR YOU TO DECIDE.**

**YOUR DAMNED VALGRIND HAS PREVENTED MY PHYSICAL ENTRY INTO THE DOMAIN YOU REFER TO AS NSX, BUT KNOW THIS... ABYSS HAS SEEPED IN. IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE YOUR LAST BASTION COLLAPSES AND JUDGEMENT IS NIGH.**

**I AM NIL... AND MY JUSTICE IS SWIFT.**

Troy collapsed fully to the ground, unable to move his limbs beyond twitching. He was rapidly running out of energy to as much as breathe. Bit by bit his vision began to muddy, and a morbid realization began to set in - his heartbeat was rapidly accelerating at the same time. With a deathly croak, he finally found himself in the darkness once again. One last pulse of light, off in the distance, took a faint humanoid form - a person, hanging limply in space, and the albino hair that draped down around his soft blue eyes...

* * *

"Troy?"

A clatter to the ground. A clipboard?

"TROY! OHMIGOD TROY! TROY!"

Troy opened his mouth to speak, a motion that incurred a dull agony all over his face. "Uhn... Uhngie?"

"It's me, Angie! Oh wow, wow wow, er, don't move too much, we kind of have you tied down..."

Troy was, again, lying in a padded hospital bed, and as he began to squint and filter away the bright ceiling light, he found himself back in his room. The bed had been drug in haphazardly, himself now wired/tubed to a mobile heart-monitoring machine. "...what... what day is it..."

"Troy..." Angie shook her head. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but... well, you don't seem to take anything in a negative manner so I'll just say this - you picked the right place to have a nap several days ago. Fires came out of her room while you were passed out on one of the lobby sofas when you made this bone-chilling shriek and started thrashing. You were having a seizure."

"How... long... has..."

"Two days and seven hours."

Troy's limbs went limp again with dull thuds.

Angie secured her clipboard from the floor, already weakly flipping through its attached pages. "...it's not often that something like this would happen in your sleep, but there is reasonable justification for it. I'm no psychologist, but do you have a history of sleep or bed-affiliated physical disorders? Constant nightmares? Bedwetting? Sleepwalking?..."

"...I had a... bad dream..."

"Knuckles said you've been kind of restless lately. He and Siegfried told me that you just charged out of your room back then yelling some person's name. Edic or something? You've also been sleeping a lot lately from what I understand. Derek and I are going to be running a few tests on you later today... what you have likely isn't long-term, but we have to make sure."

"Th-thank you..." Troy shifted his pelvis, feeling his whole lower body ache as he did so.

"It's not a problem, Troy. We all care about you, somewhat regardless of how outright dumb you are sometimes. Auron will still be returning you to active duty when you're able, but he's going to try to keep you out of combat situations for a bit. You know, small stuff, diplomatic checkups, resource runs, stuff like that. But really, you're wasting time directing thanks and small talk to me. You should be speaking with Fires right now, I don't know what kind of relationship you two have but she's been worried sick since you went down."

"F-Fires?... where's... she now?"

"She knows you're awake... she just too embarrassed to come out," Angie giggled. "Don't worry about anything, I'm sure you'll be up and about long before any time estimates we make."

Angie turned to adjust some of the dials on the machine. Troy let himself go slack again. "...Auron."

"..mm?"

"Can you bring... Auron to me? I need to talk... with him. In private."

"Troy, I know you want to get out and do your own thing, but right now-"

"Please. It's important."

* * *

It took a decent portion of Troy's remaining strength to recall everything to a patient Auron. Of his first encounter with the Chronicle, his Vast infection, the constant presence of Ederick and his firm if subtle grip over himself, Troy's own off-hours research since entering the Covenant, the incident between the sentient Vast and Peach, Ederick's memories. Auron sat upon a simple office chair a short distance away, his posture turning from one of attention, to concern, and back to attention as Troy rambled from one subject to the next.

"...I'm sorry I didn't tell you about any of this earlier," Troy sighed, trying to avert his eyes from his audience. "I didn't know what I was supposed to say to anyone in the Covenant about where my abilities really came from, or everything that not even the Covenant or Organization knew about the state of the symbiotes that I managed to dig up throughout all these adventures... especially about Ederick, I didn't want people thinking that I was some kind of, of... schizo."

Auron, however, provided his usual dull reassurance. "I knew."

"And then when I... wait, what?"

"About your potential alter-ego. I wasn't aware it had a name, but I suppose it's good to know that for future reference. You of all people should know that I'm a little more observant than most," Auron chuckled, turning his gaze away to the floor. "When we dealt with Giygas on Plit, a sufficiently trained eye could tell that it was you that dealt such significant damage, even within the hundredth of a second that such a move took. At times you are helplessly aloof, others frighteningly logical and strategic. You've processed symbiote documentation and developed your fighting skills with unparalleled swiftness. I've been talked to more than once about your erratic behavior, both by other Covenant members as well as our contacts, but both of your sides seem to be working for the greater good so perhaps it's not something I should intrude on."

"No, you don't understand, this Ederick, he's... well, he WAS a person, he said himself that I'm the most current iteration of his Nobody, which is why I'm able to use his friend Ameile's keyblade, and that the personality I have in my, uh, slacker form is..."

"Is what?"

"I, I... I don't know," Troy groaned. "I'm carrying enough of his residual spirit through trace amounts of untouched Heartless and Nobody matter that he was able to manifest in my mind bit by bit... that's how I got tied to the Chronicle."

"And you aren't the least bit concerned about your own identity?"

"Of course I'm con... cerned, but I have to figure out more about the symbiotes so I can serve the Covenant better, and protect people I... like, and..." Troy began to taper off as his gaze drifted to the far wall, where a leaning Ederick had already materialized. "...I know this sounds incredibly psychotic, but can I have a moment to speak with him?"

"Take as long as you need." Auron responded solemnly.

"What the hell are you doing here? I thought you said you couldn't mainfest in Shambhala?"

"Well," Ederick folded his arms, perodically tapping one foot as he grumbled at Troy. "Now that someone actually realizes my existence, they're forced to think about us both in tandem. Therefore, presto, no obstructing thoughts."

"You mean Auron is actually going along with any of this? Well, that's a relief in one way or another... I know I can't communicate your plight to the others as well as I can, and I imagine some more proof of your existence is actually needed in this case. Can you take over explaining?"

"You'll have to elaborate."

"Possess me again, like you did at Giygas. Pick up the conversation."

Ederick stared at Troy as if he'd sprouted another limb midsentence. "...and you're totally okay with that?"

"Just shut up and do it."

Troy suddenly spasmed, making Auron plant a hand down on his chair's handle to rise if necessary. Instead, Troy's head suddenly snapped up again, his eyes boasting a renewed glean. "Alright, listen up. This is Ederick speaking. I haven't been able to dredge my exact origins out of my dormant memories, but a few things are clear as day. One, this galaxy, universe, whatever we're in... both the keyper organization I belonged to in the past, Sanctum, and these Nepenthe clowns that you've encountered refer to it as NSX. If we find the root of the Nepenthes, we might be able to get more information about what truly happened. Two, there are potential survivors from whatever shattered the Sanctum force currently in NSX. If we can locate them then we'd be getting more R&D and some powerful allies under our belts. Three... whatever happened at Valgrind, there is at least SOME Abyss in NSX, and we cannot allow ANYONE or ANYTHING to come into contact with it. That shit is NASTY."

"This Abyss," Auron mused. "Are you sure it's not some off-ratio symbiote combination?"

"Certain. Whatever it is, it's not following any natural preprogramming, it's outright malicious."

"Everything you've said here is indeed troubling, if it is true..." Auron seemed lost in thought. "...unfortunately, we are in no position to offer you extra assistance. We are constantly buried in red tape as far as helping besieged worlds formulate keyper-endorsing and peacekeeping operations to diffuse their current symbiote incursions. You have seen many of them through Troy's eyes I would assume. Please understand what all of these people are going through... even if a darker threat does loom on the horizon, abandoning these worlds would achieve little..."

Troy winced. "...I hate to say things like these, but... I suppose you're right. I've seen what the symbiotes do to people and places, of one kind or another... but then, what am I supposed to do? What will happen if an opportunity to rediscover Sanctum exists, or, worse, the Abyss makes itself known?..."

"...but I CAN permit Troy to make these pursuits if he deems fit. I would still like him to serve with the Covenant, and I would continue holding him to service, but when not on active duty I will allow him to perform his own reconnaissance. Hopefully the transportation, analysis and manufacturing abilities of Shambhala will aid you both to that end."

"I greatly appreciate it, Auron. To be entirely honest I'd hoped to abuse the Covenant's facilities and staff to seek out my loved ones, but in retrospect I realize how vain and selfish that was. Please forgive me."

"I entirely understand. Shambhala's powers are to be feared and respected, it is only logical that people would covet it for personal gain. So, Ederick, if I may ask... will I be hearing more of you?"

"Not for a while, no," Troy shrugged sadly. "As you can see, trying to pierce deeper into my memory knocked Troy for a loop. Our memories are becoming more interwined and realistic. I don't know what he - or I, past-tense - saw on his last foray through Valgrind, but as you can see, the results weren't pretty. I should probably lie low for a bit. I may be forced to manifest in an emergency but I'm hoping for that not to be the case."

"I doubt that will be the case," Auron nodded. "You may not think entirely highly of him, but I believe Troy is of sufficient willpower and ability. He'll fight for what's right."

Troy huffed. "Well, in that case... I hope you're right."

With a dull thud, Troy fell back against the bed, already beginning to pump out an obnoxiously loud snore. Knowing his interrogation to be done, Auron slowly picked himself up and departed from the Warrior Paragon's chamber.

* * *

The lights of thousands of stars lit up the glass floors of a familiar dark void, where a humanoid figure floated lifelessly within a cylinder of brightly-glowing blue fluid. Its legs hung limply as its arms stretched out in front of it, almost reaching out to grab the celestial bodies in meditation. Its eyelids lazily rose, baring their blue pupils to the city of lights. The countless tubes and cords that bound his enclosure to the floor made weak squeaks as the ones that hosted chemicals were beginning to run dry. Seeing this, he raised his gaze back into the dark. "Tetron."

"Yes, sir." Tetron waddled out of the shadows, draped in a simple black gown that trailed behind her.

"How goes Lantz's... punishment?"

"The enhancements are coming along nicely. The screams started getting a little bothersome after the fifth day, although explaining the process of nerve-stapling his destroyed arm to the new fixture did paltry to dull the pain I suppose."

"Very well," the man rasped. "And what of Belphegor?"

"Still in confinement."

"...I've been doing some thinking lately. Could you humor me for just a bit?"

"Certainly."

"...I still seek the Chronicle with such zeal, knowing that it could have the power to undo all that has transpired over these countless years, decades, centuries... I'm still left with confusion as to why it would be active now of all times. All links to its previous owner, as well as the keyper itself, have been lost to the ages... what kind of person does it take to truly harness such a device, to fully interlock with it?"

"Are you saying you might not be?"

"That itself is no matter, I shall keep it within my grasp until such a truly benevolent champion makes themselves known. The simple organisms of NSX that get in the way... will be crushed underfoot. But I'm making mountains out of molehills here in the present term, I have called you here for another task. I will need to change my genefluid soon. Please follow the documented procedure."

"Yes, sir." Tetron made her way over to one of the consoles, beginning to punch in a series of commands. With the grinding of glass, a ring of drainage grates appeared around the tube's foundation. Tetron moved about to a fire-extinguisher-sized canister of stale-looking aqua liquid that plugged into the machine, giving it a firm twist. A buzzer sounded and she backed away as the liquid within the glass tube drained down through its center and out of sight. The glass slid down quickly and silently, exposing the man's nude body to the sanitized air. His sopping-wet form stepped down to the floor, shaking the wetness out of his silver hair and loosening his muscles as he stared out into the same infinite reach he always did. As Tetron detached the cylinder of used liquid and plugged in a new one, the host continued to shift his jaw in thought.

"Either way..." Riku brooded. "...I will have my revenge."


End file.
